After the World Stopped Turning
by sometime north of reality
Summary: Noll's world stopped the moment he walked into Gene's empty room to borrow a shirt. Slowly, with a lot of time and some help from Mai, he begins to unfreeze. He may finally be able to rejoin the world that he had let pass him by. Naru's character development from Gene's death through his return to Japan. (Focusing on moments not in or not developed in the manga.) Case one complete!
1. Freezing in the Summer

**Section One: Freezing the Summer**

_**Author's Note:** The sections are different periods of Naru's life and only connected by character arc, but each section will have a continuous plot or theme._

_**Disclaimer:** I was going to say "If I owned Ghost Hunt, would I resort to writing fanfiction?" but then I thought about it. Of course I would! I would write some legitimate stories and some completely ridiculous ones and feel ever so clever writing vague disclaimers. Since, I don't own it, here's a non-vague disclaimer. Ghost Hunt does not belong to me._

* * *

**Chapter I: Stupid Japan and a Blue Shirt**

Oliver Davis crept down the hallway, pressing himself against the wall when one of the mansion's old floorboards creaked. He didn't want to be seen doing this.

Actually, the concealment was less an act of necessity and more the result of mischievousness and boredom. Gene was in Japan doing "research" (he probably was, in fact, doing research, but Noll thought "Japanese girls" could easily be the end of that sentence and still have it be accurate), Luella was downstairs, and Martin was at work. Even if they had been around to witness, borrowing clothes wasn't exactly nefarious.

Besides, Noll sneaking into Gene's room was hardly something new. Over the years, pranks, nightmares, and sibling affection had kept the twins together despite Gene's perfection and Noll's prickliness. Noll was rarely seen studying without Gene gently teasing him into having fun, and Gene was seldom without his quiet, studious shadow. Though they (read Gene) had insisted on having some privacy when they reached their teens, they were still close.

That was why Noll was still a bit miffed over Gene's departure to Japan. It was idiotic and completely unnecessary. There were research opportunities here in England. There were perfectly good exorcisms to learn here in England. There was a lot to occupy a curious medium without abandoning Noll!

Noll didn't care that Gene was gone, of course. He was content with his research, the family library, and, when the summer holiday ended in a little over a month, school. The sixteen year old did not miss his brother's shenanigans. He didn't need them in his life.

He opened the door to his twin's room with a yawn and ran a hand through his dark hair, still untidy from sleep. Yeah, it was after noon. He was a college student on holiday and the meeting with the SPR board to present his latest experiment wasn't for a few more hours. Luella would have received only a passing look of disdain if she had been given the chance to scold him for sleeping the day away. Of course he knew what time it was. He was happy to say that he had the ability to read a clock.

She would never be given the chance.

If all worked as Noll had planned, he would arrive downstairs just in time to leave for the office. There would be no motherly fussing or inane questions to add to Noll's rising nervousness. He would never admit it, but he wished that Gene was there to trick him into calming down. This presentation was the culmination of a year's work and he was proud of his thesis: "Ghosts are affected by the emotions of the place they are tied to and the people around them." It successfully explained why some spirits did terrible things that they would never have done in life, like attacking their descendants. If the preliminary findings were accepted, the subsequent research could revolutionize the understanding of the paranormal.

Noll reached tentatively for his telepathic bond with Gene. Instead of his twin's reassuring warmth, he felt emptiness and a faint wave of green nausea. He pushed it away, concluding that he must have been too tense to focus. He'd talk to Lin about that later. For now, Gene's shirt would have to be sufficient, as he had planned.

He hoped that some of Gene's charisma would rub off on him. It wasn't that Noll was unappealing – he had some people who could be considered friends and he'd even been on a few dates at Gene's prompting. He was smarter than Gene (though not by a lot), more driven, and just as handsome, but the problem was that he was aware of it. People never liked Noll even if they respected him, whereas they all adored Gene. He subconsciously hoped that if he dressed like Gene, it would help him fit into the role and the board members would like him. He consciously told himself that his best clothes had been drenched in holy water during one of Martin's experiments a few days before and they were still wet; there was no reason to do laundry for one insignificant shirt. The science spoke for itself, regardless of what he was wearing.

With that reassuring thought, Noll set about the task of finding the perfect thing to wear, hypocrisy being a description of lesser mortals.

Gene had been gone for a month, but his room still looked lived in, courtesy of a locked door that prevented Luella from cleaning. It was meant to keep Noll from snooping, but he'd effortlessly picked the lock. There were still books written in kanji strewn across the desk ("Come on, Noll. Pleeeeaaase practice with me. I seem completely mad if I'm just talking to myself."). Just looking at it made Noll's head ache.

He quickly turned to the closet. There was a deep blue dress shirt on the floor near the laundry basket among other haphazardly discarded possessions. Blue was supposed to signal honesty, so that could help, Noll mused. Plus it matched his eyes. If it was clean, Noll decided, he'd take that one.

It was sunny outside and a ray of light shown in through one of Gene's eternally open windows. Sometimes, there was an oppressive end of summer heat that Noll hated, because it smothered the world in a dull haze. He preferred clarity. This was not that type of sunshine, though. It was the sort of weather that made everyone run to the beach and the countryside, liberated from the fog at last. If Gene had been home, he would have joined forces with Luella and dragged their two favorite scientists on a family picnic. Noll would have pretended to sulk, but everyone would have ended up discussing paranormal theories by the bank of the creek and he would have enjoyed it. Instead, he was alone with his brother's dirty laundry.

Nose crinkled in disgust, he lifted the shirt to his nose to check its cleanliness. Before the shirt reached nose-height, Noll felt something tighten in his chest. The air grew thick and heavy, and he was being drained of energy more quickly than he ever had in the past. He threw out last a desperate request to Gene to magnify energy for him or pull him to safety, but he was met with ringing silence. Something was horribly wrong.

The shirt reached out and Noll's psychometry dragged him under.

* * *

**Chapter 2: Stars Without Light**

It was night and the air was gentle and clear as Noll walked along the edge of the road, breathing in the earthy scent of the forest.

_Not Noll. Gene. Noll was at home in Gene's room. He was . . . he . . ._

He felt sort of peaceful, even though he was far away from home, alone for the first time. He hoped that Noll was alright without him. That idiot scientist might feel a little awkward around him sometimes, but Noll was awkward with everyone and he knew that his little brother needed him. He hoped that their time apart would help Noll find his own way out of the lab.

He looked up at the stars as he rounded the bend. The names of the constellations here were so different from the ones back in England. It was exhilarating to walk under a new sky. The new country was neat too, but here he was staring out into billions of meters of new universe. His mind was blinded by the faint glitter of starlight.

The high beam headlights were bright enough to end his reverie.

_No!_

He knew without needing any sort of paranormal premonition what was about to happen. The sound was what surprised him most. He hadn't known that his body could make that sickening, squelching crunch. The pain, on the other hand, was about what one would expect: complete agony. His back arched in pain and his fingernails sliced oozing lines into his palms.

But he was alive. It wasn't over yet.

The woman rushed clumsily out of the car, her eyes wide and her hands shaking. He noted that her fingernails and her high heels were the same shade of red as her car. She'd been driving too fast.

"Please," he whispered. "Help me."

He could still finish his research. He could still grow up, finish college, meet a nice girl. He could still return home to Luella, Martin, and Noll. He just wanted to go back home.

The woman leapt back in alarm. Then, without looking at him, she hopped back into her car.

He believed that he would die on the side of the road.

With her door still open, the woman drove into him again. A slight trickle of blood dripped from the corner of his mouth.

But he was still alive.

He didn't feel fear anymore. He couldn't even feel anger at the panicking woman, not because she didn't deserve it or because he was too kind, but because there was only pain and the faint whisper of regret.

He was still alive, but everything was fading to a veiled green, like murky lake water, as the woman loaded him into the trunk.

He watched, unmoving eyes staring into the darkness. He was trapped inside of his body, but he could feel nothing. He had stopped breathing.

Finally, the woman opened the trunk and hauled him out. Under the lonely starlight, she hauled his corpse to the lake and dumped him in. He sunk slowly into the depths. Only the occasional air bubble rising to the surface marked his grave.

Eugene Davis was dead.

* * *

**Chapter 3: Haze**

Why did the bottom of the lake feel so hard?

Noll opened one eye, squinting at the honey-colored wood in front of him in confusion. He was dead. He was dead.

He wanted Gene. Even if Noll was dead, Gene was a medium. Gene would be able to rescue him from this nightmare, as the twins had done for each other every time one of them got lost in his powers. Gene had stopped the poltergeists, Gene had comforted him in the early years when his accidental use of psychometry was a common occurrence, Gene had to have been the reason Martin and Luella adopted them. No one else wanted Noll. He needed his twin.

As his heart raced faster, his head swam and his chest throbbed where he had been hit by the car. He was dead. Why did it hurt so much?

Just before he would have lost consciousness, Noll's body forced him to take a long gasping breath. That was why it hurt. Noll was alive and living people have to breathe.

Then, he noticed the stiff fabric in his left hand and he realized why it really hurt so much, that agonizing pressure in his chest. Gene was dead.

His open eye closed and he pulled his knees to his chest, trying not to whimper. He couldn't remember why, but he knew he didn't want to seem weak. The room swirled around him, bobbing up and down like a buoy. The sun beat down on his black hair, coating his analytical mind in summer haze. He reached out blindly, trying to find something to hold onto, some anchor, but all he had was that idiotic shirt. He hated that shirt.

He pulled the shirt so that it left his face in shadow. The heat was too much, too strong, the light drilling into his skull, making his head hurt. Instead of helping, the shirt added to the heat and scratched roughly against his sweaty face. Even as he gulped for air, Noll didn't realize that most of the water came from tears.

The tips of his fingers didn't feel quite so hot anymore. Actually, they didn't feel much of anything and the numbness was starting to spread. That was new. The closest he had ever felt was after he did that PK demonstration with the heavy mass, but psychometry shouldn't have used that much power.

It didn't matter. He'd rather be numb than keep burning in the awful summer heat.

He clutched Gene's shirt in a tight embrace, breathing in the scent. Even as his grasp on reality faded, unnoticed tears kept dripping down his face.

* * *

**Chapter 4: The Other Son**

Luella Davis found herself making breakfast at 12:30 on the off-chance that Noll would come down in time to eat something. She knew he wouldn't. She had known from the first time she set eyes on his adorable, childish face with those distrustful eyes that he would not be the child who came down for breakfast. That would be Gene, the one who clearly adored her and Martin and whose hesitation stemmed only from the fear that they would try to take him without Noll. Gene's eyes had begged her to please love Noll too.

She had. He was so solemn, sitting there in the orphanage with his small book, trying not to be noticed and hating every second of it. She could feel his anger and some of it was directed at her and her husband, but she understood that it was caused by the fear that he would be rejected and only Gene would be taken. The only surprise for her was that he never voiced his anger. It was always under rigid control, unusual to find in a five-year old. Luella would not discover the reason for his reticence until one day he did lose his temper and objects began to fly.

Luella wanted him to like her. She tried to reassure him, placing a comforting hand on his arm, but he shied away. So she handed him off to Martin and before the end of their first visit, the boy was criticizing scientific theories. Luella was glad that she would be able to call both of the twins her own.

She was rewarded about a year later when Noll began to call her "Mother", still in that serious little voice.

That was why, when he was sixteen and so clearly not going to come down, she still found herself standing there, stirring a pot of oatmeal.

Then, she heard the boards creak. It was not subtle, the groans and whines of an aging house, but angry and loud. She remembered the sound from before Noll learned to control his powers. Absentmindedly turning off the stove, she raced to find her son.

Her footsteps echoed in the otherwise still house, for the banging had ceased, but Noll did not come out of his room to see what was happening. In fact, Noll was not in his room. Luella scanned the hallway with rising panic until she saw that the door to Gene's room was ajar. She entered without hesitation, despite her fear of what she would find.

When she saw Noll, she knew. She didn't know what she knew, but she sensed that whatever life her family had – and it had been a good one – was over. Her younger son lay motionless on the floor, curled in a tight ball around a blue piece of fabric. He was silent, but for the occasional whispered whimper, and tears streamed down his cheeks.

"Noll," she whispered, kneeling down beside him and placing a hand on his back. "It's alright. You're okay. Just tell me what happened."

He didn't reply. In some ways, his limp body reminded her of an over-tired toddler after a tantrum, but no child could feel the depth of the loss that was etched into his face. Psychometric visions were never fun, and there had been other experiments and cases that resulted in her son lying semi-conscious on what Gene had dubbed his fainting couch, but this was the worst Luella had ever seen.

She continued to whisper soothingly as she reached for her phone. Martin was in an experiment and couldn't be reached for another hour, but she could reach one of his assistants, Madoka or Lin.

"Hello," she said, trying to keep her voice even so as not to distress her son even more. "It's Luella Davis."

"This is Lin," a quiet voice replied. "Dr. Davis is in – "

"I know," Luella interrupted, panic rising as Lin's existence slapped her into reality. "Something's happened to Oliver. He's in Gene's room crying and he's unresponsive. He seems to be somewhat conscious though, so I don't want to leave him long enough to show medics in. We're taking him to the hospital ourselves. Get here now."

"Yes, ma'am."

Lin hung up and did as he was told. He tried to quell his concern. Noll was conceited, snide, a bit of a brat, and worst of all Japanese, but Lin had come to care for the kid as he taught him to control his powers. From what he knew of Noll, crying was almost more alarming than not responding.

Within minutes, he was racing up the stairs in the Davis mansion.

He found the Davises on the floor, Luella gently soothing Noll, despite the tears that were beginning to run down her own face. The boy seemed oblivious to their presence.

"Lin, welcome," Luella said, almost as if nothing was wrong. "Come see if you think it's safe to move him."

Hesitantly, Lin knelt beside the younger boy. He reached out a careful hand and laid it lightly where Luella's had been only moments before.

Noll didn't respond.

Lin did as he was told, checking for any injuries. His hand did not find any as he ran it along the boy's spine and, though there were dark, spreading bruises on his torso that looked as if he had been struck by something, the actual damage seemed minimal. Lin finally ran his hand over the boy's head to check for head injuries.

"Gene," Noll murmured suddenly. "It's too hot."

Lin exchanged a startled glance with Luella.

"He's in the sun, but it's not that hot," he said.

Luella shook her head slightly. Lin might be a very powerful onmyoji, but he had never had children. She rested her hand lightly on her son's forehead.

"He has a fever," she answered quietly. "I would guess that it's a pretty high one. What did you find?"

"He doesn't have any injuries that would be aggravated if we moved him," Lin replied.

Luella nodded.

"Do it."

Moments later, Lin was driving Luella's car. He saw her in the rearview mirror, in the backseat with Noll in her lap, holding an icepack to his forehead as tears continued to fall down both of their faces. Lin pushed the accelerator down a little harder.

* * *

**Chapter 5: Slowing to a Stop**

Lin thought the Davis' next project should be proving that time passed more slowly in the hospital waiting room than in any other type of location that could be found on the planet. That had to be some sort of paranormal phenomenon. Gene and Noll had their share of mishaps over the years, and the fallout from each one felt longer than the last. Lin hated waiting.

Finally, one of the doctors came out of Noll's room and walked over to Lin.

"Mr. Davis?" the doctor asked. "You're son's going to be alright. I'm Dr. Lakesworth and I'd like to go over his condition with you if you have a moment."

Lin glanced over at Luella. She didn't appear to have any inclination to reply and Martin still hadn't arrived.

"How is he?" Lin asked, resigning himself to the temporary role of father.

"Asleep and recovering," the doctor replied. "We've brought his fever down and the only serious problems seem to be anemia and exhaustion. I do have to ask how he came to be in this condition, especially given the bruises."

Hell. Lin thought quickly.

"He just got back from a football training camp this morning," he lied. "He doesn't tend to eat much when he's away, so we were surprised when he refused breakfast, but we didn't think it was that unusual. Teenagers, you know."

Lin tried to stay in character as he watched Martin and Madoka enter the room. Madoka winked cheekily at him and he fought an expression of blank stoicism. It was his preferred cover for embarrassment.

"I suppose he must have been in some sort of accident during practice and didn't want his mother fussing over him. She always tells him that he should take better care of himself, you know," Lin continued. It was almost painful, pretending to be so much slower than he really was, but the Davises were a good family.

"Ah, I see," the doctor said, buying his act. "Well, boys will be boys. Tell him that he needs to be careful, though. If he'd been much worse, it could have been fatal. Football's great, but it isn't worth dying for."

"Of course," Lin replied, and, with a last stern nod, the doctor left.

Luella had been trying to tell Noll the same thing for years, but about research rather than football. Noll had feigned deafness, but he'd toned down the level of experiment that he was willing to participate in.

"You're quite the talented liar," Madoka sang into his ear, wrapping herself around his arm.

"And you're not?" he questioned the resident prankster with a faint smile. That smile belonged only to her. Perhaps someday, he'd manage to give her something more, but today was about the Davises.

"What's Noll's condition?" Martin asked as he embraced his wife, straight to the point, as always.

"He'll live," Luella replied. Then, she lowered her voice.

"He used psychometry and then lost control of his PK. I don't know what he saw. He spoke a little, but he wasn't lucid. He was trying to talk to Gene."

Of course Noll wanted Gene. There was nothing to say to that. Martin joined his family in their vigil.

* * *

**Chapter 6: Behind this Wall of Ice**

Noll opened his eyes, drinking in the hum of the machines responsible for monitoring his continued survival. He was alive. That was okay. It wasn't much different from the alternative and someone had to bring Gene home.

He turned his weary gaze onto his pseudo-family. Madoka, surprisingly the ever-keen observer, had already noticed him.

"Noll!" she squealed, elbowing Lin and rushing over to the edge of the hospital bed.

Noll silently raised his eyes to meet hers. He barely flinched at the ripples the harsh noise sent through the stillness in his aching head.

"Oliver, darling?" his mother asked cautiously. "How are you feeling, love?"

Oliver considered the question for a moment.

"I seem to be relatively unharmed," he said as if reflecting to himself.

Madoka rolled her eyes.

"Manners, Noll! In all of that training, didn't I manage to teach you manners? The entire English language at your disposal and that's how you decide to greet your mother after scaring us all like that?"

On another occasion, Noll might have been grateful to Madoka for diffusing the tense, emotional situation. This was not such an occasion.

"Yes," he replied. He gave her a frigid stare.

Luella narrowed her eyes in concern. Her son was seldom verbose, except in pursuit of a theory or when informing someone of his or her inferiority, but one word answers had always meant trouble. They meant Gene had finally pushed him too far, Noll was hiding something, or, in early years, he didn't trust them with the details. It wasn't a habit Luella wanted to see return.

Noll observed her scrutiny emotionlessly. It was just as well if she was suspicious; she would not be completely blindsided by the news that he had to deliver.

"What happened?" Martin asked. "What did you see?"

Having only seen the aftermath, Martin was not afraid to ask. Luella and Lin were just as curious, but their curiosity was intermingled with dread. Despite the Davis' attempts to shelter Noll from the negative impacts of his powers, he had felt many violent deaths. He had sometimes been confused or upset immediately following a vision, but in recent years, once he was fully awake, he showed minimal reaction to the experience. This one was different.

"Perhaps Lin and Madoka should leave the room," Noll answered tonelessly.

"They're investigators too," Martin scolded. "They can handle whatever you're about to tell us."

Noll considered protesting, but he had already forgotten why he wanted them to leave. It must have been something about sparing his parents an audience. No matter.

"Very well," Noll replied, his gaze directed determinedly at the window shade.

Luella had taught Noll that technique. It was easier for him to impart information about his more traumatic visions or for clients to give their accounts without eye contact. She braced herself for the worst.

"I'm going to Japan. I need to find the lake from my vision and bring Gene home."

The words were clipped and brusque, masking the pain from anyone who didn't know him. Everyone in the room did.

"Couldn't you just ask him to come home?" Martin asked, willfully misunderstanding even as Luella clutched his hand more tightly. "I know he left even though you asked him not to, but he's still your brother. Gene will come back for you."

Noll smiled icily.

"I'm afraid there are some limits to what brotherly affection can accomplish," he answered.

The world should have been crashing down around him, but instead, it just seemed static. The cars continued to whiz by in the street below and the seconds ticked past in the hallway clock, but time was nothing. Even if the illusion of seasons continued on this single, lonely planet, it was frozen. Earth had stopped turning, stopped hurtling ever-forward through space with the relentless progression of time. Nothing could move again until Noll's sole directive had been accomplished. He would find Gene. Gene would be brought back to England for a funeral.

"He's never coming back, not even if I ask nicely. Gene is dead."

* * *

_**A/N:** So, these little side-panel stories weren't going to become a regular thing, but then my muse kept whispering odd phrases in my ear while I was trying to write. If anyone's seen Ouran Highschool Host Club, picture me as Kyoya and my muse as Tamaki. I sit quietly working and my muse runs in, surrounded by a cloud of rose petals, chattering excitedly about a stupid idea. It only lets me get back to work after I've done what it wants. This side-story isn't especially funny yet, but those of you who branch out to other fandoms may realize where I'm going with this. It's a crossover of sorts and your hint is Tuesday._

_**Disclaimer:** I don't own Ghost Hunt or . . . well, you'll see._

**Dead Again Part One**

"_Where_ are we?" Mai asked as she read the sign proclaiming the Mystery Spot the most haunted place in the U.S.

Naru sighed.

"I'll explain for Mai, since apparently her English isn't up to reading simple words on signs. Madoka has requested that we investigate this tourist trap for supernatural activity. A man disappeared a few days ago, and Madoka took this as a sign that the place was actually haunted. We will begin our investigation in the morning."

With that, Naru walked into their hotel.

Mai looked over at Monk.

"Is this place really haunted?" she asked.

To her surprise, it was Lin who replied. He slipped her a handful of brochures for fun things to do in town. Some of the activities were highlighted in pink.

"Madoka sent Naru and everyone Naru spends time with to a tourist town with a lot of legends and little actual activity. Do you think there's a case?"

Lin brushed past her and on into the hotel.

Mai smiled. She could picture Madoka sitting at her desk, plotting to make Naru have fun and relax against his will. Vacation!

* * *

_**Important Author's Note:** I know I'm already breaking my "the story must be finished" rule, – though every section will be complete before I post it – but I wasn't sure about this story. Are you interested? Do you want me to keep writing it? (Not a ploy for more reviews. If one person expresses interest, I will happily write for an audience of one.) Assuming I continue it, this story will include a pre-Mai case, some scenes not in the manga/anime or that were told strongly from Mai's perspective, and will eventually end as a companion piece to "A Moment from Now". Suggestions welcome, though I do have some idea of where this could go._


	2. A Talk with Madoka

**Section 2: A Talk with Madoka**

_**Author's Note:** Thanks to everyone who favorited, followed or reviewed. The story will continue!_

_**Disclaimer:** I don't own Ghost Hunt. I don't even seem to own this story. I was trying to give Naru a case when Madoka just sort of took it over. Seriously. Read this knowing that she wasn't even going to be in this section._

* * *

**Chapter 7: Remember to Live**

Noll looked out over the cityscape from the balcony of his hotel room with icy detachment. He wasn't saying goodbye to England, even though he would be on a flight to Japan come morning. There was no need. He would be back, and he couldn't care enough to miss it. He just couldn't stay in the stale air of the hotel room any longer.

He took a long, deep breath of the chilled night air. Even though it was summer, there was no warmth in it. He exhaled in a despairing huff.

"Time to brood already?" a perky voice asked from the balcony beside his. "I didn't think it was quite that late yet."

"Madoka."

"Madoka!" he said again, but this time in protest. The cheerful woman ignored him and easily vaulted the distance and railings separating their balconies.

"Well, if you must brood, you've picked a nice night for it."

Madoka leaned against the railing next to her young protégé. She snuck a glance at him before turning to stare ponderingly at the lights around them to avoid eye-contact, as Noll would prefer. His blue-grey eyes were inscrutable, blending in with the surrounding darkness. They would have matched the mourning clothes he had donned as soon as he left the hospital, but he was in his pajamas. The fabric was thin and he shivered slightly. She wondered if he even noticed.

Then again, Madoka had noticed him shivering on the drive to London, and it had been warm then. She inched subtly closer, hoping to give him even a little bit of her warmth. She moved carefully and nonchalantly so that Noll would allow her proximity. Her efforts were rewarded when he leaned slightly closer to her. It was an unconscious action, but it signaled success. He had accepted her slight gesture of comfort.

"The stars are gorgeous," she continued blithely.

To her immense surprise, Noll flinched. She wouldn't have been able to tell if she wasn't leaning so close that they were almost touching.

"Oh, Noll," she wondered, "what happened to you?" She wanted to demand that he tell her everything, tell her why stars were a trigger and what dying thoughts she had unknowingly echoed, but then he would never tell her anything. Even now, she only knew that Gene had been murdered and that his body was in a lake. Everything else was inference based on what she could read from miniscule movements and micro-expressions. She chose not to push him, and let conversation lapse into silence.

After a moment, she deemed it safe to continue.

"What brings you out here?" Madoka asked. "You'd normally be in bed with a book, not admiring the view."

No stars. She would be careful not to mention stars again. Or Gene. The older boy's name had not been spoken once since the revelation that he was dead.

She wanted to cheer when Noll finally showed some expression – it was a glare, but it was still a readable expression.

"I could ask you the same," he retorted.

"You could," she said. "You haven't yet, though, so do or answer my question. I'm not going to discuss what we could hypothetically discuss."

She felt his pause, as he tried to come up with a clever answer that would let him "win". He was better at clever retorts now, her little student. She still remembered when she was Professor Davis's prize pupil and just starting at the British Society for Psychic Research. People forgot, sometimes, because she was so cheerful, that she was also brilliant. She had been cool then, though Noll would never admit that he thought so. He had been eagerly searching for direction and she had shown him down the path to finding it. She took him out of the lab and showed him how to conduct research in the real world, how to help people. She'd made him who he was, and then the foolish world had gone and broken him.

"As you like," he replied. "Why are you out here?"

"I heard you skulking," she answered easily, "and I wanted to have one more chance to share my mentorly wisdom before you left for Japan. Your turn. Why are you outside instead of studying or, God forbid, getting enough sleep for once?"

"Wanted some air," he replied coolly.

"Oh?" Madoka teased. "Were you running out of it in your room? Thought you'd go find some more?"

"It was too green," Noll muttered, surprising both Madoka and himself. "I couldn't look at that hideous wallpaper any longer," he elaborated, trying to take back what he had accidentally shared. "The hotel's interior decorator was either color blind or a complete moron. I'm inclined to believe the latter hypothesis, given the pattern of the carpet in the hallway."

Too green. Because death visions were green and the lake where Gene's body awaited discovery was green. Madoka felt a strong wave of grief, both for the cheerful twin who had lost his life and for the grieving twin at her side who had misplaced his soul. She wanted to take Noll back to the cases where he'd proudly proclaimed "I'll protect you" when he and Gene faced ghosts and then both boys fell asleep in the back seat of her car. Oliver Davis would never be completely comfortable with his life – he was much too intent and intense for that – but at least he had been content then. Green was the color of death visions, but it had also the color of the trees in the summer and the fields he and Gene played in. She was sorry that those memories were dead now, too.

"You might be right," Madoka agreed, following the unspoken rules that gave her the right to watch over the younger Davis twin. "I never knew that it was possible to combine gothic and disco into a pattern."

She shuddered playfully.

Noll smirked.

"Come on," she said. "We're going for a walk."

"In London at night?" Noll asked skeptically.

"In London at night?" Luella asked moments later, after Noll had changed and was preparing to leave with Madoka.

Madoka smiled easily for Noll and gently for Luella. She wouldn't let Luella lose another son.

"Don't worry," she replied with an affectionate grin at Noll. "Noll will protect me and I won't let any fawning girls get to him. You can count on me."

Madoka looked innocent there, smiling up at Luella, but Luella had known Madoka for many years. She was never, under any circumstances, to be underestimated. She was every bit as devious and calculating as Noll with a few more years of practice. She knew what she was doing.

"Alright," Luella decided.

As Madoka and Noll walked into the night, he asked, "Why are you sending Lin with me to Japan if you still think you're my mentor?"

Madoka didn't take it personally.

"It was your parents' decision to send someone to Japan with you," she replied dutifully.

"I know," Noll answered, exasperated, his voice still cold. "Because of my powers, I'm a danger to myself. They don't trust me like they trusted Gene and why would they? I just got out of the hospital for damage I unintentionally did to myself. They want someone to keep me out of trouble and report back to them. I know that. My question was, why Lin? I know my parents decided to send someone, but you decided that person should be Lin. Why was the only member of the BSPR who is less social than I am chosen to accompany me?"

"Because," Madoka wanted to tell him, "I'm needed elsewhere. I can't come with you and I don't have enough time to help you heal before you leave, so instead I'm sending the man I love. Even though I can't go, I can still send part of my heart with you."

"Because," Madoka replied, "it made sense to send someone you knew and were used to working with. The only people you regularly tolerate are Lin and me. I'm needed to help run the BSPR, and Lin makes more sense anyways as the one who taught you to control your powers. He was the logical choice."

Noll nodded, accepting her answer. Madoka studied him for a moment. He seemed suitably pacified, so she thought she'd take the opportunity to use her special privilege as his mentor. Luella was the only one who could make Noll demonstrate affection or manners, and Gene was everything to Noll from confidante to coconspirator, but mentor gave Madoka a few abilities of her own. She could make Noll agree to anything and he would always listen to her. Right now, it was time to use that.

"Noll," she said. "About that mentorly advice I wanted to give, I want you to know that I approve of what you're doing. Find Gene and bring him home. I helped convince your parents that your trip was necessary."

For him to heal, but he didn't need to know that.

Noll looked surprised, but slightly pleased. Madoka took that as a good sign.

"I want you to make me a promise, though," she continued.

Now, Noll looked sullen and wary. He nodded though.

"Take a case while you're there and help someone," she said. "You have to promise me that."

Noll blinked slowly.

"Why?" he asked.

"Please, Noll, for me," she said. "Do you remember the case at the old inn, when there wasn't enough data available to further our research, but we still took the case because the innkeeper had a little girl and she was scared?"

Noll blinked again, confused now.

Madoka pushed on.

"Do you remember what I said, when the pure researchers left and the exorcists stayed, when you chose to stay with me?"

"Of course," Noll said. "Superior intellect. I seldom forget. You wouldn't let me stay unless I told you why I wanted to."

"Do you remember what you said?" Madoka asked.

"Gene – he wanted to help the 'damsel in distress,'" Noll replied.

"Not Gene. You," Madoka urged. "Your answer was the reason I let the two of you stay, even though you were both so young and inexperienced. What did you say?"

Noll gave in.

"I said that 'Scientific research of the paranormal is the stated goal of the British Society for Psychic Research. However, a true scientist must understand that life continues on. People must be held as more important than the quest for knowledge."

"Right," Madoka said. "People shouldn't be sacrificed even for what they most want to accomplish. So find Gene. Do what you need to in order to give him, yourself, and your family peace, but promise me that you'll find him without forgetting to live yourself. You're important, Noll. Promise that you'll take a case and make sure you come back to us in one piece."

Noll stared at her, something shifting deep within the recesses of his mind. Suddenly, he felt like he might miss England, after all. He would love to know how Madoka always managed to do that to him.

He regarded her from behind his emotionless veneer, but with softer eyes.

"I promise," he said.

* * *

**Chapter 8: Remember for Me**

Lin was not happy with Madoka. Sure, the Davises were the ones paying him to play chaperone, but he knew how the BSPR worked. Outside of the research, Martin and Luella asked for a thing to be done and Madoka decided who should do it and how it should be done. That meant that it was Madoka's fault that he was awake at 1 a.m. looking at _Japanese_ hotels.

He was sad that Gene was dead and he was sorry that Noll was devastated – he might even admit to liking the kid – but that did not mean that he wanted to be responsible for an angsty teenager in Japan. Only Madoka could possibly believe that sending him was a good idea. It was understandable that he was a little irked at the woman who was normally a close colleague and even friend.

He only answered the knock at the door, because he believed it would be Martin or Luella. He feared that Noll had used his PK again and that he was needed to teach control once more. It never occurred to him that the urgent knocking was courtesy of Madoka.

She barged past him without hesitation and threw herself onto his bed. Once there, she perched lightly on the edge, her arms wrapped tightly around her legs.

His anger dispersed. He had every right to be displeased, but this was Madoka. He returned to his seat at the computer.

"Who do I need to set my shiki on this time?" he asked, because, for some unfathomable reason, random threats of violence made Madoka feel better. "Is it Noll?"

"How about everyone who ever hurt him!" Madoka snarled. "He was doing so well and then that blasted woman killed Gene. What kind of monster could hurt our sweet, kind Gene! And then there's Noll, who only saw the fun side of his powers – and life – because Gene was there. That boy is going to let life slip past him while he's stuck in mourning, and he won't be able to heal at all until the body has been found. He needs people, cares about people, even if he fancies himself to be some sort of scientific hermit. I don't want to lose him too. Set your shiki on that!"

Lin continued his hotel search, allowing Madoka to rant.

"Where's Noll now?" Lin asked. "You're up awfully late for the fact we're not working."

"Just got back from a walk," Madoka replied.

Lin tried not to raise his eyebrows. It was Madoka. She could do whatever she wanted and the world would let her get away with it. It was something innate about her.

"Noll's a bit of a mess, of course," she continued. "I think I finally tired him out, though, and I sent him back to his room with a cup of tea like Luella did when the twins were young, so he should be able to get some sleep. He'll need it. He speaks Japanese well enough, but read – No! Not that one."

"What?" Lin asked, startled at the sudden interruption to her musing. "What's wrong with this hotel? I haven't found anything in the history that should cause him to have a problem with psychometry."

"It's not that." Madoka sighed. "The rooms are painted green."

"What?" Lin asked, baffled. Then, "Oh. Death visions, lake – right, no green. Okay, that's new but we can work with –"

He paused, looking around the green room. Madoka watched him.

"Damn."

"Yeah," she replied. "Hence the walk. I thought I was going to have to find a pharmacy that was open this late to get more of that medication Noll sometimes took for insomnia when he was younger. I'm not usually grateful for accidental PK use, but sometimes exhaustion can be a good thing. He was stumbling on the stairs on our way back, so while I seriously considered carrying him, I didn't have to drug him. Small blessings."

She smiled tightly. For the first time since Luella's phone call a few days before, Lin felt concern for someone other than the Davises. He had known Madoka for a long time, as they were both young members of the BSPR together, responsible for the training of the Davis twins. He never quite knew what to make of Madoka, but he did know that her ability to be cheerful in the face of crisis was remarkable. Even in the worst situations, her cool head and capability always carried her team through. If Madoka was angry though, she revealed it. If she was hiding that she was upset and it was bleeding through anyway, something was wrong.

"Madoka," he began tentatively, "are you alright?"

She smiled that false smile again.

"It's been a long day," she said, "and Gene's dead. Just try to keep Noll in the land of the living."

"Of course," Lin tried to reassure her. "But you know that Noll would never contemplate suicide. You've heard his admittedly somewhat unorthodox opinions on the afterlife and that he has no desire to be there."

"I know," Madoka replied, "but he doesn't have to die to stop living. It will be so easy when he's over there – among people who don't know that smirk means he's teasing or that when he's cold and harsh without it, he's tired, stressed or hurt – to stop connecting to people and stop letting them in. No one he meets in Japan will even know his real name. I just want someone there to know who he really is, so that he can be reminded when he forgets."

"And you think I can do that?" Lin asked softly.

"Yes," Madoka said fervently. "You know I never said thank you, after my fiasco of a first case with the BSPR. You hated the Japanese, you hated me, but you were right there to help me fix everything before the Professor saw the mess I had made."

Lin smiled.

"You know, I was an even more recent addition to the BSPR than you were. I didn't know what I was doing either. Your theory that the girl was causing the poltergeist seemed fine to me until the actual poltergeist attacked. Then I was only able to help because I had the advantage of my shiki. "

"Still," Madoka replied, "it was sweet and I haven't forgotten. So thank you. I know Noll can be narcissistic and annoyingly superior, but unlike anyone else I could have sent, I know that you know him, and that you can find compassion even when he's driving you mad. Keep him physically and psychologically safe while he finds Gene. Then come home."

She stood on her tiptoes for a moment to give him a quick kiss on the cheek. Then she was gone, fluttering out the door as abruptly as she'd barged in.

Lin felt the heat of a blush spreading over his cheek from where he had been kissed. Madoka.

"I promise," he whispered.

* * *

_**A/N:** Not feeling the side story this time. It will have three parts and the actual story will be much longer, so no randomness right now. Next time: Naru and Lin get their first case! If any parapsychologists out there want to talk to me about the difference between ghosts and poltergeists . . . I'm concerned about messing up imaginary science._


	3. Flowers in the Haunted Library - Day 1

**Section 3: Flowers in the Haunted Library – Day 1**

_**Author's Note: **Wow, that was a challenge. Put Lin and Naru in a room and try to write plausible dialogue. Thankfully, Madoka insisted on being included in this section too. _

_**A note on the names:** Now that Naru is in Japan, characters will be introduced in conversation with their last names first. I will leave off the honorifics, because j'étudiais le français au lycée and I don't know enough about Japanese culture to risk it. The names are courtesy of Google._

**_Disclaimer: _**_It's been about a week since I last updated and I still don't own Ghost Hunt. Clearly not a productive week._

* * *

**Chapter 9: New Office, New Case**

Noll surveyed his new office space dispassionately. It was empty, mostly, save for a desk and chair left from the previous owner. Noll would need a better desk for the back office, obviously, and maybe some book shelves. He made a note of it in his notebook. The office was a symbol of independence and a promise to his parents that he would not be consumed by the hunt for Gene, but it wasn't actually necessary. He didn't plan on staying around long enough to need it for more than the single case he owed Madoka.

Noll nodded slightly to himself, approving the room.

Lin watched, but even for Noll, Noll was being hard to read.

"Noll?" Lin asked.

"Satisfactory," he replied. "And it's Shibuya now, though I suppose Kazuya is acceptable if you feel like being familiar."

Lin didn't reply. He followed quietly behind the boy whose life he had somehow become responsible for, the boy who would be playing the role of his boss come Monday.

Monday morning saw Noll sitting in his new desk chair poring over maps as Lin sat quietly typing in the other room. Every so often, Noll would reach for his teacup only to find that it was empty. He'd give a slightly annoyed exhale, then continue with his work. A few moments later, he'd unconsciously try again and find that the cup was still empty.

"Lin!" he called.

"I work for your parents," Lin replied coldly, never looking up from his computer. "I will pretend to be your assistant should it be required in order to protect your identity from the press or the murderer, but you make your own tea."

Noll stared out his open doorway at his "assistant", eyes narrowed slightly.

Lin began to wonder if he should take pity on the younger boy and just make the damn tea for him, - he'd spent enough time with Luella and Madoka over the years to know that the beverage was a means of psychological comfort – but this was the closest Noll had come to behaving like himself since they landed in Japan. By that of course, Lin meant cold, argumentative, and slightly petulant. Noll's worst traits seemed to recover the most quickly. Nevertheless, it was a considerable improvement from the almost catatonic state in which he had spent the plane ride. All the while, Lin had sensed an unspoken, unyielding determination burning behind the boy's glazed expression. Lin was beginning to wonder, for the first time in his life, if perhaps there was such a thing as too much silence.

He allowed the silent internal struggle to continue and continued to type placating reports to the BSPR. Noll was fine, they were still working on a plan of where to search, and Lin would write again if anything of interest happened. He'd write tomorrow anyway, because Luella would worry if he didn't. It was going to be a long trip.

Lin had resorted to analyzing the data from active BSPR investigations for entertainment. When he'd agreed to work for the Davises, he had believed that there would be more paranormal activity and less babysitting.

Noll was glaring at his teacup.

Lin glared at his computer screen in annoyance when the chat bar opened with a message from Madoka.

_ M-Mori: Is Japan as awful as Lin-family legend would have it?  
K-Lin: . . ._

Lin didn't know what to say to that. He wasn't willing to relinquish his prejudices easily, but to be honest, what little of Japan he had seen had been fine. Japan wasn't the problem.

_ K-Lin: Noll is staring at an empty teacup._

He could almost hear Madoka laughing a continent away. It was a bright, pleasant sound, but it was always tinged with worry now.

_M-Mori_: _How's he holding up?_

What could Lin say to that without making Madoka board the next flight to Japan? Noll was too pale, his eyes were void of emotion except for the occasional glimmer of pain, and trying to outlast an inanimate object in a battle of will was the closest to normal human interaction that he had managed since landing?

Noll reached a decision, sparing Lin from the challenge of finding a way to say that Noll was as traumatized as ever, but basically fine.

_ K-Lin: The teacup won. He's going to make more. Think he'd bring me a cup?_

_ M-Mori: Not a chance._

_ K-Lin: Client._

Lin abruptly cut off conversation as a middle-aged businessman walked through the door of the newly opened office of Shibuya Psychic Research. The newcomer was respectable from the rigid lines of his posture and relentless regularity of his haircut to the decidedly but not ostentatiously present shine of his shoes.

The man scanned the room and turned decisively towards Lin.

"My name is Tanaka Sota and I have a case. Are you the head of this establishment?" the man, Tanaka, asked.

Noll walked quietly over to the two men, sipping his tea. His lips curled slightly in annoyance at the interruption, but soon settled into an expression of bland curiosity.

"What case?" he asked without inflection.

Tanaka rounded on Noll.

"You should show your superiors respect," Tanaka chastised. "You'll never make it in the world if you can't learn your place in it. That's what I taught my children, and that's what I'm teaching my grandchildren. If you really want to be involved in this investigation, you can bring over some tea while I give your boss the details."

He flashed Lin a commiserating smile.

"Teenagers," he finished.

Lin waited uncertainly for his "boss's" reaction. This was an area in which Noll was unpredictable. He was known for his scathing tone and biting wit, but he was also known to be scrupulously polite and professional with clients. Having never been lead investigator, Noll had never dealt with those classified only as potential clients. Lin was unsure what level of courtesy the client would merit even if Noll wasn't a bit emotionally unstable.

"Potential investigation," Noll replied mildly, his eyes glinting dangerously. He took another sip of his tea.

"What?" Tanaka asked.

"Potential investigation," Noll repeated. "I haven't agreed to take your case yet. My name's Shibuya Kazuya and I see you've already taken the liberty of introducing yourself to my assistant, Lin."

Pointed, accurate, but within the realm of civil communication. Overall, Lin felt that Noll had handled the situation well, though he couldn't help but feel that the word "assistant" had been spoken with an unnecessary emphasis.

"You're Shibuya?" the potential client demanded in disbelief. "You're running this business? How old are you?"

"I'll turn seventeen soon," Noll replied coolly.

"How does someone that young become the owner of his own business?" Tanaka wondered aloud.

"By being very good at what I do," Noll smirked. "Apparently, my skill set is one you wish to make use of. I'll ask again, what case? You might as well take a seat. I expect a detailed answer."

Tanaka automatically did as he was told, unused to being outmaneuvered by children. Even as he settled into the hard seat, he realized that he had made a strategic error. The other two men beside the desk now loomed over him. Resigning himself to the mistakes he had made, he began to tell his tale.

"I'm here on behalf of my daughter, Watanabe Matsuyo" he told the ghost hunters. "She, her husband, and their two children moved into a new house a couple of months ago after her husband got reassigned to Tokyo for work. Since then, she claims that she has been hearing knocking sounds, especially on the library windows, and that the books keep turning up on the wrong shelves. Sometimes furniture is overturned. She also claims that small objects don't stay where she leaves them. This apparently occurs throughout the house. Does this sound like something you would investigate?"

Noll considered the question.

"It has several indicators of a poltergeist, but it can also be easily explained without involving spirits. Has anyone else observed the phenomena you described?" Noll asked.

The case admittedly met some of the criteria for a poltergeist, but the more likely explanation by far was still that Tanaka needed the services of a psychiatrist rather than a ghost hunter. Besides, even if it was a legitimate case, if the ghost could only be observed by the woman, then it was of little scientific use to the BSPR.

Tanaka frowned thoughtfully.

"It depends on who you believe," he said. "Her eldest child, Gen, adds that he's sees the ghostly outline of a person, again around the library. Her husband hasn't seen anything and believes she's hysterical. And Nazumi, well, Gen says she hasn't seen anything, and she isn't the type to believe in spirits, anyways. She's a little scientist."

Noll was interested in the case now, however much he disliked the client, but he was beginning to question his choice in decor. He chose limited, uncomfortable seating, because he didn't want people to come. He intended to spend most of his time in the office sitting behind his desk in the other room, continuing the search for his brother.

The problem with that was, now that he had an actual client, there was nowhere for him to sit in the main room, and it had been less than a week since he convinced his parents to discharge him from the hospital despite doctor recommendations that he remain for a few more days. He was quickly becoming tired.

He found a compromise between looming impressively and collapsing, and decided on a suave pose leaning on the edge of Lin's desk, most of his attention still focused on the information the client imparted.

Unfortunately, his weight-bearing hand hit a pen, almost causing him to slip. To his immense, but unobservable, surprise, Lin was already at his side. His "assistant" steadied him subtly and pressed a fresh cup of tea into his other hand. If Noll had been paying attention, rather than balancing on the line of scientific detachment and overwhelming grief, he would have noted the unexpected behavior with interest and some emotion similar to warmth. Who knew that Lin cared?

Lin certainly hadn't been aware of it himself before he noticed Noll swaying slightly where he stood. It was hard for Lin to remain aggravated when he was having flashbacks to the younger boy lying semiconscious in Luella's arms. Besides, he promised the Davises and Madoka that he would take care of Noll.

He returned to his laptop as if nothing had happened and continued recording details of the case. Noll took a sip of tea.

Tanaka remained oblivious to the scene that had just played out before him.

"How old are the children?" Noll asked as if nothing had happened.

"Gen's twelve. Nazumi's nine.

"Look," he continued. "Matsuyo's husband doesn't believe in ghosts, and I'm not so sure that I do myself. It's not important. It doesn't even matter if you're a fraud. I just need you to look like you are investigating and then declare the problem solved. Then my daughter will be able to move on from this strange obsession."

Noll bristled, and though Lin was still determinedly facing his computer, anger could be seen lurking in the depths of his eyes.

"We will consider your case," Noll told him, his voice the epitome of detached professionalism. "We will need to do some preliminary research to see if it is worth our time. If you are determined that we investigate, you may return tomorrow –"

Noll was interrupted when the front door of his office flew open to reveal a small figure. The boy had untamed dark hair and an infectious grin.

"Grandpa!" the boy yelled, rushing in and throwing his arms around the somber figure. "You do believe me! I knew you'd find a way to fix everything even though daddy doesn't want you to. I told Nazumi it would all be okay. Thank you!"

Tanaka did his best to seem unruffled, but the truth was that he was a bit embarrassed, given what he had just told the SPR, to have his grandson saying "you do believe me".

Noll was unfazed by the irony. He did, however, feel his heart twist slightly as he regarded the twelve-year-old's beaming face. He regarded the boy somberly.

"Gen," he said, "your grandfather was telling me that you've been seeing a ghost in the library. Can you describe it to me?"

The boy nodded solemnly.

"It's a man, and he's super tall," Gen said. "Even taller than you, but not as tall as your friend."

Noll blinked at the reference to Lin.

"He's sort of a blue-white color and he's really scary," the boy continued with wide eyes. "I told Nazumi to stay away from him."

"Has Nazumi been with you when you've seen this man?" Noll asked softly.

"Uh-huh," Gen replied. "I told her about him after the first time I saw him, and she came with me the next time I went into the library. The man was there, but she couldn't see him. I tried to talk to him, ask him to leave, and he sort of walked towards me. It was scary. Then, it got really cold in the room and then a whole bunch of books sort of jumped off of the shelves and I pushed Nazumi out of the way. When I looked up, he was gone."

"Is this the only time this has happened or have there been other occurrences?" Noll asked.

"That was the worst one," Gen answered. "I told Nazumi not to go in the library without me to protect her. Even though she said not to be silly, she protects me, she's scared of the library and doesn't go in there much anymore. When we do, I sometimes see the man in the shadows and books move, but he hasn't tried to come close to us again."

Noll folded his hands, deep in thought.

"Thank you," he concluded, shaking the boy's hand. He looked over at Tanaka.

"We'll take the case."

* * *

**Chapter 10: Meeting the Watanabes**

Lin pulled up to the Watanabe house in the SPR's rented equipment van. The house was modern, but it was built in traditional Japanese style, with the many-layered rooftop and the sliding screens. This confirmed what Lin had already suspected: the clients were very rich.

Noll, on the other hand, seemed uninterested in the house that they would soon be investigating and was instead captivated by the garden. This too was traditional, for the most part. There were stone paths through beds of tranquil green and quaint wooden bridges crossed peaceful brooks that led into still ponds. The serenity was disturbed, however, by small patches of vibrant color. Among the gentle pinks and reds of the typical blossoms, someone had planted some orange and yellow annuals. Interesting.

"Start bringing the cameras in," Noll ordered. "I'll find out what room they want us to use as base."

"Perhaps we should meet the rest of the family and allow introductions," Lin rebuked mildly.

Noll shot him a dark look, but agreed.

"Fine, but we hurry. We'll solve the case, make our reports, and then we can return to our true purpose here."

With that, he strode off to meet the Watanabes.

Mrs. Watanabe opened the door. She was a conservatively dressed woman, but her hair drifted playfully around her face and there were tired lines at the corners of her smile. She had some contradictions.

"I'm Shibuya, and this is my assistant, Lin," Noll said, his tone courteous but brusque.

"Welcome," she replied. "Father told us you'd be coming. He said you'd take care of our ghost problem."

"If it is truly a ghost, we will," Noll told her.

"Well then, come in," she said, gesturing Noll and Lin inside.

Gen came racing in from an adjacent room.

"Mr. Shibuya!" he said brightly. "You came! Are you going to find the ghost?"

"Gen," Mrs. Watanabe scolded. "They've just arrived. Let's show them the library and the room we set up for them to use, before you ambush them, okay? You and Nazumi can lead the way."

"All right!" Gen cheered, racing ahead.

"I see you've met my son," Mrs. Watanabe said with a smile, "and he seems to have taken a liking to you."

"He's a friendly child," Noll replied blandly. Mrs. Watanabe felt something almost like criticism hiding in his words. Lin could have told her that it was nostalgic, playful dislike.

"Well," she continued, recovering, "Nazumi, you can help your brother show our guests around."

The two members of SPR exchanged a glance and looked around for the girl. She emerged quietly from behind the edge of the doorway her brother had come running through earlier. She was a pretty girl, dressed in a pink t-shirt and dark jeans. Her socks were decorated with small pink flowers. In contrast to her brother's unbridled enthusiasm, she was sleek and cat-like.

"It is a pleasure to meet you both," Nazumi greeted respectfully. Her voice was crisp and careful.

"If you'll follow me," she said, "I can show you the library. Gen will be waiting for us outside."

"Thank you."

Lin and Noll followed Nazumi towards the door to the library, where Gen was waiting just as she had said he would be.

"Here it is," Gen announced brightly. "Are you afraid?" he asked curiously, the remark addressed to, of all people, Lin.

Lin just looked at him in surprise.

"Hauntings tend to be quiet when newcomers arrive," Noll told the boy.

"Oh."

He seemed both relieved and disappointed. Next to him, Nazumi let out a quiet breath she didn't realize she had been holding, tension melting away.

Her brother slipped his hand into Noll's.

"Come on, then!" Gen said brightly.

Noll tensed at the unexpected contact, but allowed himself to be pulled into the library. The others followed behind.

The library was essentially a library and not an especially impressive specimen aside from the claim that it was haunted. There was row upon row of shelves, some of which were horribly unorganized. Noll could tell even with his limited ability to read kanji. On one side of the library, there was a row of floor to ceiling windows. Noll noted the trees outside that pressed against the glass.

A poltergeist was starting to look less likely.

"Gen," Noll asked, "are the books in the library supposed to be alphabetized?"

Gen shrugged.

"Yeah, I suppose so," he said.

Nazumi whispered something in his ear.

"Yes," he said. "Is it important?"

Noll looked the boy in the eyes.

"Some of the shelves appear to hold the correct books," he explained, "but not in the right order. It looks like they were dumped off and then hastily put back on by someone who didn't know what he was doing. Did the ghost do that?"

"He must have," Gen said guilelessly.

Noll nodded.

"Right. Lin, we're leaving. There isn't a case here."

"There is," Gen argued desperately. "I saw the ghost and I saw the books fly. You have to believe me."

Noll kept walking.

"We moved the books," Nazumi interjected.

Noll paused.

"Why?" he asked without looking back.

"No, don't!" Gen protested. "He thinks we're lying about the ghost and that it's just a prank."

Nazumi shot her brother a scathing but affectionate glance.

"They're scientists," she explained. "Didn't you see all of their research equipment? They can't find the ghost and make it go away if we don't give them accurate information."

She turned back towards the investigators. Gen sulked, but Noll and Lin were fully engaged now. Noll smiled imperceptibly, his ploy successful. So it wasn't just a prank and the wind knocking branches against the windows. It was a case.

"Gen really did see the ghost and the books really did fly off of the shelves," Nazumi elaborated. "We were the ones who put the books back in the wrong place, though. We're not great at alphabetizing and we didn't want to stay in the same room as the ghost for any longer than necessary."

"Why return the books at all?" Noll asked.

Nazumi turned away, eyes dark. That was fine. It told Noll immediately that this was not related to the ghost. While she had been ready to contribute to the information needed to solve the case, she wasn't going to open up to them. He didn't expect her to. Noll knew better than anyone that it wasn't the role of the reserved younger sibling in a relationship like that. He turned expectantly towards Gen.

The boy shifted his weight awkwardly from one foot to the other and back again.

"We didn't want Mom to see the books all scattered," he said. "She'd know it had something to do with ghost and she'd tell Dad. Then he'd decide that she really is crazy and send her away. That's why we need you to get rid of the ghost."

"Please," Nazumi chimed in quietly. "Don't tell Mother or Father about this."

Noll looked at them seriously.

"We won't," he promised. "We take the privacy of our clients very seriously."

"We're clients?" Nazumi asked skeptically. "We're just kids."

Noll smiled at her and it almost reached his eyes.

"Your parents are the ones funding our investigation, but you're our clients," he said. "You're the reason we accepted the case, and we will find your ghost."

* * *

**Chapter 11: Fleeting Things**

Noll rubbed one of his stiffening shoulders in annoyed exhaustion, having finally finished setting up all of the equipment. Most of it was stationed in the library, the center of the alleged paranormal activity, but heat censors had to be placed in every room. After all, objects moving of their own accord were phenomenon not limited to the library. Noll needed to know if the report was true, or if the Watanabes were just careless with their possessions.

He missed having a team, though not for any of the sentimental reasons others might wish to project on him. He had the knowledge necessary to set up all of the cameras – that was easy – but heavy lifting was not in his job description. Noll was an investigator. There were interns to carry equipment so that he was still awake for the brain work when the case was finally truly underway. The whole two-man team thing would take some getting used to.

"How's the investigation going?" Mrs. Watanabe asked warmly as Noll returned to the front room.

Lin was already there, waiting with an expression of bored impatience. He had never been lead investigator either, because no one had wanted him to be in charge of the BSPR's public relations. Noll was, surprisingly, a bit better with clients.

"The equipment is in place," Noll replied, patiently and with only the faintest hint of condescension. "We'll take temperature readings for every room, and then we will have done as much as we can here for the time being. We have to wait until the phenomena you reported are observable. This seldom occurs on the first day. In the meantime, we will research the history of the house and surrounding area."

"Are you going to stay here tonight?" she asked. "The guest room near the library is set up, as you requested, and Nazumi and Gen are just down the hall. I can have them show it to you, if you like."

Noll considered the offer. Though protocol dictated otherwise, he preferred to be close to the scene of the activity. Staying would not be overly dangerous, because no one had been harmed yet and the apparition seemed to be limited to the library. However, staying would not be especially interesting either. It was the first night and nothing was likely to happen.

"We wouldn't want to impose any more than is necessary," Noll answered smoothly. "Our research can be done as well from the hotel as from here. We will return in the morning to see the data, and depending on the results, we may stay tomorrow."

He was almost amused to see Lin's subtle relief at the response. Yes, Noll had heard that "guest room" was singular as well. He knew that after the near-constant company, Lin was looking forward to some time away from him. That was perfectly alright as far as Noll was concerned. Despite what everyone seemed to believe, he didn't need a babysitter.

"Lin will get started on the readings now," Noll added, feeling spiteful. The older man did as he was told, but reluctantly. Noll knew that he was going to regret his dismissal of his "assistant" later.

Mrs. Watanabe smiled.

"Well, you're welcome to stay as soon as you need to," she said. "I know the children will be sorry to see you leave. I fear the experience has been frightening for them, Gen in particular."

"Why 'Gen in particular'?" Noll asked, suddenly intrigued.

"Well," Mrs. Watanabe replied, looking confused as she thought about the question. "I suppose it's just hard to say what Nazumi thinks about all of this. I don't think she believed me the first time she heard me telling my husband about it. I'm not even sure she believed when Gen told her what he'd seen, and then ever since their adventure in the library, she's spent a lot of time shut in her room. I wish I could blame it on the ghost."

She continued talking in response to Noll's probing stare and inquisitive silence.

"It's just . . . with the move . . . my husband . . . Ryusei and I have – well, Nazumi notices things and I worry that it's been hard on her. Gen too, of course, but he's older and he's better at only seeing what he wants to. He's only concerned with the ghost."

She turned imploringly towards Noll.

"I know this ghost thing is just revealing problems that already existed, but I can't deal with it on top of everything else. Please just get rid of whatever is causing this."

"We'll do our best," Noll promised. "Lin!"

The tall man peered around the corner.

"Yes?"

"If you're finished with the readings, we'll be going," Noll said. "Good day, Mrs. Watanabe."

She smiled, embarrassed now that the moment of confidence was broken, and showed Noll and Lin out as if nothing had been said.

The drive back to the hotel passed in silence until Lin, who was regarded with fearful awe by his colleagues at the BSPR for his ability to withstand awkward silences, could not stand it anymore.

"Noll," he said. He waited for a snide retort to the concern he hadn't voiced and became even more concerned when one did not come.

"I'm thinking," Noll replied after a long pause. The conversation had to make its way into his musings and then he had to realize that a response was required. That took time.

"About?" Lin tried to make it sound like a casual question rather than a demand. It didn't matter; Noll wasn't really listening.

After waiting a few moments, Lin decided that Noll was refusing to answer. That was a common occurrence, and Lin was willing to let it go.

He jumped slightly when Noll finally spoke, the words soft as if the sound hung suspended in the air.

"Happy families and other fleeting things."

The image of the last Davis family photo lingered for a moment in their memories. Martin and Luella stood with their hands intertwined, gazing fondly at their sons. Gene took his place in front of them, laughing. He had his arm wrapped around his younger brother, who for once shared a willing smile with the camera. It was a different time. Gene was alive, the family was whole, and Noll had yet to don black. Unable to find the words to send the image back to the abyss of regret from whence it came, Lin was content to let the rest of the car ride pass in blissfully unemotional silence.

* * *

**Chapter 12: Not Tonight**

Lin closed his laptop resolutely and displayed only minimal surprise when Noll rounded on him.

"You're giving up?" the younger boy demanded. His tousled hair and shadowed eyes detracted from the vehemence of the question.

As Noll had told Mrs. Watanabe, he and Lin had returned to their hotel to research the history of the house and surrounding land. So far, they had failed to find any explanation for the potentially spirit-related events, paranormal or otherwise. The land was not shrinking or shifting, the house was structurally sound, and nothing noteworthy had happened to the men in or around either for hundreds of years. It was frustrating, but not completely atypical. After all, Japan was an old country. Years of history haunted the nation's current inhabitants.

While the cause of the haunting at the Watanabe house might have been hiding somewhere in a different millennium's history, Lin had no intention of finding it that night. Since he and Noll had arrived at the hotel late in the afternoon, they had been researching diligently. Their concentration never wavered, aside from a brief dinner break. This was typical of the first day of an investigation. At midnight, however, Lin felt that it was only reasonable to retire for the night.

Apparently, Noll disagreed.

Lin took a peaceful breath, imagining himself back to his apartment in England and wrapping himself protectively in the solitude. When this failed to completely dispel his irritation, he reminded himself that, though Noll's frustrated insistence that they were missing something was illogical, it was only normal under the circumstances. It was late, they were both tired, and Noll was under a lot of strain. He was hurting and looking for proof that the entire world was responsible for his pain, a belief that would be confirmed if Lin could somehow be made into a target. The least productive of Lin's possible responses was to give Noll someone to fight with.

Besides, he had to keep his promise to Madoka.

With his self-control renewed, Lin was prepared to try to defuse the situation, though not to buy into Noll's irrational search for the history of the "ghost".

"We have searched through the complete records of the house and the land for the past thousand years," Lin reminded Noll gently. "We haven't even confirmed that there is paranormal activity or that it is of spirit origin. It's late, and if you plan to work on the case tomorrow, it's time to sleep."

Lin's attempt at patience went unrewarded, largely because Noll was too far gone to notice.

"There is a case," the overtired teenager muttered distractedly, not taking his eyes off of his computer screen. "The woman may just be crazy, but the kids aren't and they think there's something there."

"The boy already lied to us once," Lin pointed out shortly. It was too late for his resolve to be understanding to last long.

"Yes," Noll retorted, "and Nazumi called him on it and told us the truth. Therefore, she doesn't think he's lying about seeing the spirit. She didn't see it, so that rules out the mass delusion theory. They're close enough that she would know if something was wrong, so odds are, he did in fact see a spirit. He probably has some sort of ESP. There is a spirit, and thus there is a reason for there to be a spirit. We didn't find a reason, so we're missing something. Oh, and I believe that eliminated insanity, pranks, and structural instability, our first possibilities to investigate before we are supposed to suspect paranormal activity, as dictated by BSPR policy. Any questions?"

Lin paused. The reason why Noll was allowed on cases even when he was quite young, Lin recalled, was because he was an absolute genius. When Noll seemed to flout the rational order of hypotheses to test, it was because he was several logical leaps in front of everyone else. It was still possible that there wasn't a spirit, but the reasoning in favor of a ghost made sense.

Lin felt slightly guilty for doubting Noll, just because the boy was grieving and sleep-deprived. He knew that, in addition to Gene's death, Noll was still smarting from the insult of having been sent with a chaperone when Gene had been allowed alone – and from the lack of trust this implied. Questioning Noll's logic had been a mistake, especially when it was too late for a reasonable discussion and would be taken as criticism.

Noll still had his customary cool expression pasted on his face, but he was breathing hard. It was time for Lin to make amends.

"You're right," Lin said, swallowing his pride despite his usual reluctance to feed Noll's. "It is likely that there's a ghost, and that means we're missing something. Nevertheless, we won't have any data to go off of until morning. It's time to sleep."

Noll gave him a long, wary look.

"Goodnight, Lin."

The boy departed without protest for his own room next door.

Lin was not as relieved as he had thought he would be by the sudden stillness. He wasn't questioning his decision to call it a night – Noll's argument rambled in noticeable contrast to his usual concise style, proving that Lin had made the right choice – but Lin had a nagging sense of doubt. He was having trouble forgetting the look that Noll gave him just before he shut the door. It held the usual level of intense determination, but also the faintest hint of wild desperation. While Lin couldn't be certain what answers Noll sought so relentlessly, he suspected that they were completely unrelated to the case.

Lin allowed himself a moment to imagine his return to England and Madoka, accompanied by a Noll who had been magically restored to the person he'd been before Gene's death. He feared that dream was impossible. When Noll had broken, some of the pieces were lost, taken with Gene into the realm beyond. Lin gave up and fell asleep.

* * *

_**A/N: **Next time . . . Noll takes a nap! In case that isn't exciting enough, Lin and Noll also make some progress on the case._


	4. Flowers in the Haunted Library - Day 2

**Section 4: Flowers in the Haunted Library – Day 2**

_**Author's**** Note:** Sorry about last week. The weather at the beach was great. The wi-fi was not. To all of my U.S. readers: I hope you had a good Fourth of July._

_**A note on this section: **The information on period dress should actually be accurate. I did research! (Okay, so I read one article and picked the time period with clothes I was familiar with. It's summer. That counts as research.) Also, I was wondering about the balance and pacing of humor, case, and Noll angst in this section and the overall story. On the one hand, I want the story to be fun to read. On the other, he lost his twin less than two weeks ago at this point. Thoughts?_

**_Disclaimer:_** _Still not mine. I don't own Ghost Hunt and I don't own the lines I blatantly stole from the anime for the auto-suggestion experiment._

* * *

**Chapter 13: The Highway or the Scenic Route**

Noll was awake, Lin wasn't, and Noll really wasn't okay with that. He had told Mrs. Watanabe that they would return in the morning to see what data had been recorded. It was eight-thirty-two and every extra second that Lin slept was a second not spent solving the case so that the search for Gene could continue. It was another second that Gene's body was alone in a foreign lake.

Noll drummed his fingers on the scratchy hotel comforter as he looked at the digital clock for the third time in as many minutes.

Lin still wasn't awake.

The comforter felt too rough on his fingertips, and Noll pulled his hand protectively away. It was eight-thirty-three.

It was time to wake up Lin.

"Lin!" Noll called out decisively to the sleeping onmyoji, knocking on the door.

Before he could call out a second time, Lin stood in the half-open doorway looking, not disheveled, but at least slightly rumpled. Gene would have been fascinated to discover that their instructor could look anything less than completely composed. He had always wondered, and now Noll knew. Gene wasn't there to share the moment with.

"Noll?" Lin asked, clearly expecting there to be some sort of crisis to explain his sudden awakening. Noll chose to ignore the implied question.

"Obviously," he replied, his tone emotionless but with a harsh undertone. "We're leaving for the Watanabe investigation as soon as you're ready."

He braced himself slightly for the attack that was surely coming. Lin might do as he was told in front of the clients, but away from outsiders, the twenty-six year old onmyoji was the long distance voice of Noll's parents. He was in charge.

The expected scathing reply never came.

It was no longer the middle of the night, and Lin had slept. He gave Noll a long look, taking everything in. To anyone else walking down the hall, Noll looked a bit tired and more than a little uninterested and disdainful. However, Lin was not a stranger. He had known Noll for years. He saw the boy's jittery hands and flickering gaze, heard the challenge in his reply and saw his fear of it being answered. He wondered if Noll had slept at all.

"I'll meet you here in twenty minutes," Lin replied, about to shut the door.

Then, he paused as if remembering something important.

"Go over the temperature readings from yesterday," Lin said, estimating that the task would take at least fifteen minutes. Having provided Noll with temporary distraction from the sparks randomly flaring and dying behind the boy's electric blue eyes, Lin closed the door.

Noll was left staring at the door handle with a vague sense of relief. He returned to his room to analyze the readings.

Exactly twenty minutes later, he and a now-dignified-looking Lin pulled out of the hotel parking lot.

The drive passed quickly in its usual silence.

There were a lot of things that Lin wished someone would say to Noll, but he was not the right person to find the words. Luella, Madoka, and especially Gene would know, but they were all far away. He would let time do its work.

Noll was oblivious to the thoughts concealed in the silence. He stared out of the passenger side window as if trying to absorb every detail of the scenery that flew past. He didn't notice any of it. Instead, he replayed his psychometric vision of Gene over and over again in his mind, hoping for some identifying landmark that he had missed. The trunk opened and the stars that could be seen over any part of Japan gleamed through the boughs of a tree in an unremarkable forest. The woman released him and he sunk into the murky green depths.

The trees outside formed a green blur, but it was a peaceful green unlike the unforgiving green of death visions. The soft green light seemed to spread as Noll let his head rest on the corner of the seat. Within moments, the vibration of the car had lulled him to sleep.

The moment the boy was asleep, Lin felt a wave of peace crash over the tense air. He let the van slow as it approached the highway that would bring them quickly to the Watanabe house. Within twenty minutes, he would have to wake Noll up to investigate.

It was a beautiful day, warm but with a cool rejuvenating breeze that cleared away sky's former haze. Lin decided that, as the driver of the van, he was allowed to choose to take the scenic route.

It would take an extra fifteen minutes to reach the investigation site. If that happened to be enough time to make the trip the length of a reasonable nap – well, the drive was really much more pleasant.

With a last look at his sleeping charge, Lin drove past the turnoff.

* * *

**Chapter 14: Investigations and Apologies**

Noll blinked sleepily at the man leaning over him.

"Lin?"

"We're here," the older man said. Noll tried to identify the unfamiliar note in Lin's tone, but his eyes were obscured by the strand of hair that shadowed his face.

Noll unbuckled his seatbelt without reply and glanced at the clock. He'd been asleep for longer than he had thought. He reasoned that there must have been a lot of traffic. While Noll resented any delay to this investigation, and by extension his true investigation, he was glad that the trip had been longer than usual. He winced slightly as he remembered his own behavior that morning. The relentless restlessness of the morning was gone, leaving him feeling drained and a bit contrite. He would find a way to make it up to Lin later.

Now, it was time to work.

Gen was the first to notice their arrival and came rushing down the path to the front door, calling out in greeting.

"Mr. Shibuya! Good morning, Mr. Lin! Mom, Nazumi, they're here."

"I can see that," Mrs. Watanabe called from the doorway with a fond smile. "Good morning."

Nazumi waved from where she stood, half concealed behind her mother.

"Good morning," Noll replied politely. "I trust you had a quiet night."

"We did," Mrs. Watanabe confirmed. "You were right. We didn't even here the tapping at the windows that had been going on before. It was completely quiet."

Nazumi turned away with an expression of distaste, as if to protest that her definition of quiet differed from her mother's. However, she said nothing to contradict the absence of paranormal activity, leading Noll to believe that whatever had occurred had merely been family drama. That really was not his problem to fix.

"I'm glad to hear that," Noll responded dutifully. "If you are ready for us to begin today's investigation, we will collect the data that was recorded last night."

"Of course."

Mrs. Watanabe stepped aside to allow Noll and Lin entrance, with the ever-present Gen traipsing cheerfully behind.

While Mrs. Watanabe excused herself to go about her daily chores, Gen and Nazumi insisted on staying to watch the paranormal investigators at work, despite assurances that it would be boring.

"How can it be boring?" Gen demanded in disbelief. "It's ghosts!"

"Good," was all Nazumi said.

Noll and Lin collected the recordings from various pieces of equipment and returned to base to analyze it with no regard for the children who accompanied them. The data was unexpectedly conclusive. Even though the Watanabe's had reported no activity the night before, the temperature in the library had abruptly dropped close to freezing around eleven and the cameras showed only static. Roughly thirty minutes later, it returned to its usual temperature, a few degrees cooler than the rest of the house. That was a strong indicator of a spirit.

However, Lin had found another smaller temperature change that was troubling Noll. Around the same time that the temperature in the library suddenly dropped, the temperature around the entrance and the nearby kitchen decreased by a couple of degrees. Right before the library returned to normal, these rooms warmed and the hallway by the bedrooms cooled for a moment. It was on the edge of the range of temperature fluctuations that could be accounted for by the quirks of air currents and architecture. However, it seemed too distinct to be accidental.

Noll needed tea.

He stood up and left the room in search of the kitchen he had seen during the tour on the first day. Lin continued typing, knowing without asking where Noll was going. Besides, it was the middle of the day. The danger would come later.

While Lin was uninterested in Noll's departure and even Gen seemed content to imagine glorious tales of horror while technology collected and processed data, Nazumi followed.

"Where are you going?" she asked when Noll paused at the end of the hallway to let her catch up.

"To make some tea," he replied. "Do you think your mother would mind?" he added as an afterthought.

Nazumi shook her head seriously.

They went quietly about the important business of making tea.

When the water boiled, Noll asked, "Would Gen like some?"

Nazumi shook her head.

"Gen and I don't really like tea," she admitted. "Mother says that for some it is an acquired taste, and that we probably will like it when we're older."

Noll bit back a smile, but a light shown through the clouds covering his eyes as he poured two cups of tea.

"Would you like to bring Lin his then?" Noll asked.

Nazumi nodded brightly, delighted to have a job to do. She followed Noll back to base, careful not to spill.

Lin didn't look up when Noll and Nazumi returned. He did, however, glance over briefly as Noll walked past him. As expected, the boy carried a cup of tea and wore a satisfied expression. He noted with some amusement that Nazumi was also carrying a cup. She looked like a little duckling following behind the leader of their ebony-haired, tea-drinking duck family. Lin shook his head slightly and resumed work.

"Excuse me, Mr. Lin?" a soft voice interrupted his typing.

Lin looked up to find himself looking into the wide, brown eyes of Nazumi. She looked away quickly, holding out the teacup.

Lin took the proffered cup, sneaking a glance at Noll. The boy was watching him with cautious expectation, confirming Lin's suspicion that the tea was a peace-offering and apology.

"Thank you," Lin said and took a sip of his tea.

* * *

**Chapter 15: Other Options**

Noll was well on his way to proving the frequently tested scientific theory that staring at data would not cause it to mutate into an understandable pattern. He still didn't know why the temperature had changed in the other rooms. After a couple of hours, he found that rather frustrating.

The problem was, he reflected as he pored over the architect's plans for the house, that there was nothing to find. Obviously there was an explanation somewhere, but it seemed increasingly likely that the explanation was paranormal. That brought him back to the original issue: there was no reason for there to be a ghost.

Noll shot a wondering look at Lin who was typing as diligently as ever. What could he possibly be doing? Noll had explored every option he could think of and had found nothing.

What he didn't realize was that Lin had reached the same conclusion a half hour before and had found other methods of passing the time until new data was collected.

_ K-Lin: You were wrong. He did bring me tea._

_ M-Mori: Call the exorcists! We have an obvious case of possession. Or . . . wait. What did he do first?_

Lin hesitated. As much as he would like to have her join him in Japan – to help with Noll, obviously – he didn't want to worry Madoka unnecessarily. It wouldn't be fair to her. He dealt with his conflicting emotions by ignoring them and choosing strict accuracy.

_ K-Lin: Woke me up and ordered me to get ready to investigate._

_ M-Mori: That doesn't sound like him either. Koujo, what happened?_

_K-Lin: A lot of stress and not a lot of sleep, I think. Relax. He fell asleep in the car, and I drove around a bit to give him some time to rest. He seems fine now._

_ M-Mori: How very parental. Of course usually in that scenario, the child is an infant or toddler, not a – whatever Noll is. Teenager doesn't seem to cover it._

_K-Lin: One of a kind. Of course, he'd probably take that as a compliment. I hope any children we have are a lot easier to handle._

Lin looked over the message he had just sent. He had meant that he or Madoka might have children one day and obviously those children would end up spending time at the BSPR, so it would be great if they didn't turn out like the Davis twins. Hadn't he?

He shook his head to clear it of images of little dark-haired children with Madoka's sparkling eyes and mentally prepared himself for the oncoming teasing.

It came as anticipated, but it wasn't what he expected.

_M-Mori: Well, that was unexpected. Have you met someone I should know about? You know I would _love_ to meet her._

Lin blushed slightly, more in relief than in embarrassment. He could hear Madoka using her sweetest teasing voice as he read the words she had typed. He felt a sudden rush of nostalgia, not for his home in China, but for England. There was a time when Madoka would have made him uncomfortable, and he would have retreated behind his awkward wall of silence for the rest of the week. However, Lin was an adult now. He could take her teasing and respond in kind.

_ K-Lin: Hardly. Noll is one of the strongest arguments for abstinence I've ever met._

_ M-Mori: What a loss to the world. (Making a face at you even though you can't see it.)_

_ M-Mori: He's a good kid, though. Underneath the unwillingness to let anyone know that he cares, he's a good person._

_ K-Lin: I know. That's why I came._

Lin hesitated, surprised by the serious turn the banter had taken. He supposed they were all still under the cloud of grief enveloping the Davises. He couldn't change that, and he wasn't even certain that he wanted to, but he could pull Madoka out of it for a few minutes.

_ K-Lin: Laughing at your face even though I can't see it and don't laugh._

Madoka sent a picture, not of her making faces, but of her smiling devilishly at the camera, at Lin. Lin smirked in return.

_ M-Mori: Now you can see. And you do laugh. I'm pretty sure we've even gotten it on tape at some point. I have incontrovertible proof!_

_K-Lin: Of course I laugh for you. Seriously though, have you seen anything like the secondary temperature drop before?_

As Lin and Madoka launched into an exploration of possible theories related to the case, Noll marveled at Lin's work ethic. Noll was driven and focused, but he was out of ideas. He needed a medium who could contact the spirit, find out who it was and what it wanted. Gen could see the spirit, but he seemed to have some sort of ESP rather than truly being a medium.

Noll needed Gene.

Unfortunately, he was left with only himself and his own unusable powers.

That gave him an idea. Noll crept nonchalantly out of the room with Nazumi trailing doggedly behind him.

* * *

**Chapter 16: The Home They Built Together**

The problem, Noll reflected as his gaze meandered around the haunted library, was that all of the books looked somewhere between ancient and forgotten-in-the-back-of-a-store-selling-used-books. He couldn't know which belonged to the Watanabes and which could help him locate the library-bound ghost without asking. If he asked, he risked alerting Lin to his plans, and his plans were exactly the reason that his parents had insisted on a chaperone in the first place.

Unless . . .

"Nazumi," Noll called. "I need some information on the history of the library. Would you answer a few questions?"

The girl slipped quietly around the shelf she had been lurking behind and nodded solemnly.

"Is there anything in here from previous owners?" Noll asked.

Nazumi looked around the room thoughtfully.

"I think it was a library before we moved in," she said. "Most of the shelves were here before and, I think, most of the books on business management and stuff in the last two rows. Maybe one of the desks?"

Noll wanted to shut his eyes in despair. It was good that something might belong to the ghost, but that was a lot of psychometry. Instead, he nodded coolly at the young girl.

"That gives us somewhere to start then," he said.

"I can help?" Nazumi asked in surprise.

"Yes," Noll replied. "Start going through the books in the last two rows and see if any of them have been written in. I'll start with the other shelves."

Noll walked calmly to the first set of shelves and rested a hand on it gently. It was unlikely that he would find anything that day, he knew, but it often took time to solve the case. While Noll often lacked patience with people or tasks he deemed uninteresting, he could persist indefinitely in pursuit of a goal. He would search one object at a time until he found what he was looking for.

That was why he came to Japan.

Noll focused on the shelf, letting the protective barrier around his mind that separated his sense of self from the world at large weaken, only a little. Too much, and he wouldn't be able to find his way back.

The shelf helped less than other objects he had encountered. Usually, Noll needed only weaken his barrier a little, and he would be pulled in, but no one had poured years of daily life into the shelf as people did with personal objects. It could offer only decades in a quiet room.

There was something, though, before the shelf had become a mere surface on which to place more important possessions, a hint of pride and the whisper of a smile belonging to happier days. Noll grasped the emotion and used it to pull himself into the memory.

In another year of someone else's life, a young man stood next to the shelf, panting slightly with exertion, but with a proud smile on his face.

"Last one," he told his wife.

She looked adoringly up at him from amid the boxes that had yet to be unpacked. She seemed to glow in the hazy light that filtered through the old windows.

"Our first home," she said.

The happy memory faded uselessly. Noll let it slip away, glaring at the shelf in front of him. Other than causing a temporary sense of well-being and hope that he didn't actually feel, Noll's forbidden use of psychometry had done nothing.

He searched the shelf again, more aggressively this time, but withdrew quickly when he found himself brushing past a memory of smothering heat. Noll was unimpressed with himself for having illicitly used psychometry, only to rediscover the fire in the nineteen nineties that he and Lin already knew about from their research. It had been a simple wiring issue caused by nothing more than the age of the house. Part of the house had burned down, so the owners decided to take the opportunity to rid themselves of the weary boards and rusty pipes. They built a new house and moved their remaining furnishings back in. No one had been harmed in the process; it was a dead end.

With no change in expression, Noll took a few steps to the right and placed his hand on the next bookshelf.

It hesitated in response to his probing, but quickly offered him another scene with the same couple as before. Noll studied them more carefully this time, since it seemed he would be retroactively intruding on their lives for a while. They appeared to have lived during the late nineteen forties or perhaps early fifties based on the woman's attire. Her dress was Western in the narrow-waisted, flaring style popular following the Second World War. It was the color of the sky on a cloudless day in April, and there was laughter in the woman's eyes as she raced towards her new home. She paused as she reached the door, allowing her husband to catch up.

He was a handsome man, a serious businessman during working hours, perhaps, but his eyes shown with the same joy as his wife's during his free hours. His shirt sleeves were rolled up, and he had a broad grin on his face.

"After you, my heart," he said gallantly, holding the door to their new home open for his wife. She kissed him playfully as she passed and swept inside.

Enough. Noll had seen enough of the happy couple's happy memories. He didn't give a damn about the marital bliss of the now-departed. He was trying to find the cause of the ghost.

Besides, a world-weary and bitter voice in the back of Noll's head reminded him that the apparent time period was about right for the couple to be the Kimuras. However joyous the newlyweds seemed, if the woman was Kimura Amaya, she was going to kill herself fewer than twenty years from the kiss Noll had just witnessed.

Noll walked forward to the next set of shelves and raised his hand again. The afternoon passed in a blur of the couple's memories.

Noll watched Mrs. Kimura come and go for several years, placing a new bright flower in the vase on her husband's desk every time it began to wither. Seasons passed in a transition from white to pink to red to gold. Time was made of wilting flowers.

He watched her take away the vase when winter came.

He watched Mr. Kimura studying late into the night by the yellow light of a dull bulb. The book was on management (he just wanted this promotion). The book was on finance (the company would soon be his and it would prosper). Noll could hear the last sighs of ambitious thoughts that had long since been achieved and now rested in the grave.

He watched the book in front of him as he sat at the desk, barely looking up as his wife exchanged the dying flower for one that hadn't yet realized that it had been cut. He knew there had been a time when he would have stopped in his work and told her that the brightest point of the day was in the evening when she walked into the room. It was no less true than it had been then. He didn't know when he had stopped telling her, but he knew that she understood. They both had their duties as members of the Kimura family.

Noll's eyes refocused abruptly on his surroundings, jarred by that last thought. He was a Davis, not a Kimura, and he had reached the last shelf. The scientist in him said that the shelves had been eliminated as possible leads – Mrs. Kimura had committed suicide, but the apparition was a male spirit – and that he would start with the desk and books next.

However, some part of Noll was still frustrated at the waste of time. It seemed the young couple had been the only ones to leave behind the imprint of their memories. After their early life together, there had been too many years of silence in the library, and too many years of emotionless history. Noll feared that there was nothing to find.

He would be content if he could continue the search immediately, but using psychometry was not at all like using the internet or reading public records. His protective mental wall was dangerously low, and he was willing to admit to being a bit tired. The search would continue another day.

Noll turned to find Nazumi staring at him with an unreadable expression. If he had been doing anything overly suspicious or the look had come from someone other than a nine year old child, he would have suspected that it was concern.

"Have you found anything?" he asked.

"Nothing yet," she answered dutifully. "I still have a bunch of books left though. Do you want me to keep looking?"

"Not today," Noll replied. "I have other work to do, and you shouldn't come in here alone. Right now we need to meet up with Lin and your family."

Nazumi looked reassured that she wouldn't be continuing the task alone. To her, Mr. Shibuya was fearless for walking into the haunted library as if it was nothing. The air was thick with the decay time brings even though the room was relatively new, and the light that streamed through the generous supply of windows was cold. It left flickering shadows that danced macabrely, always at the edge of her vision. She inched closer to her uninterested hero.

She really hoped that she wouldn't see the ghost like Gen had.

At least Mr. Shibuya was there. Nazumi scurried after Noll towards the door.

"Oh, and Nazumi," Noll called as they left. "I'd appreciate it if you waited to mention this to Lin. I prefer not to discuss leads before I know if they'll prove relevant to the investigation."

* * *

**Chapter 17: The Auto-suggestion Experiment**

"Focus your eyes on the light . . . Try to match your breathing to the glow of the light . . . Nice and slow . . ."

Noll stood calmly at the front of the darkened guest room, letting his voice fall smoothly into the mesmerizing, pulsating light. The soft red light glowed and faded and glowed and faded in time with the steady breathing of the room's occupants. Even though Noll was the one performing the auto-suggestion experiment, he had to concentrate to stop himself from being lulled into the soothing peace that spread over the room. Only Lin, standing by Noll's side with impeccable detachment, seemed immune.

"Tonight, a vase will move, this small ceramic vase to be exact. It will be sitting on end table that is in front of you now, and it will move."

Noll flicked the lights back on and watched the eyes of the three Watanabes be irresistibly drawn to the vase. He didn't feel any particular triumph at the successful hypnosis. Noll was a professional, and Madoka had taught him well; it always worked.

Tomorrow, if the vase had moved, they would know that the paranormal activity was caused by latent PK and not a spirit. Now it was time to leave.

"Thank you for your time," Noll said, knowing that the Watanabes were in too much of a daze to truly listen. He ushered them politely from the room.

"In order to conduct our investigation," he added, "we need the room to remain undisturbed until we return tomorrow."

"Of course," Mrs. Watanabe replied with a vague smile. Then, "That means you, Gen."

The boy glared.

"I heard what he said!" Gen protested.

"It's not your hearing that was in question," his sister commented dryly.

Noll almost smiled. "I never doubted your hearing, though I'm still in some doubt as to whether the problem is your inability to comprehend or to obey," teased another younger sibling in another time. Much like the siblings in the time before, Gen and Nazumi continued their quarrel down the hall without a second thought as to the reason behind the instructions they had been given.

Mrs. Watanabe smiled apologetically.

"I'd better go break up them up before it escalates. Do you mind showing yourselves out?" she asked.

Noll agreed as graciously as he was able, and then she was gone.

The moment the door closed, he whirled around towards Lin.

"Mr. Watanabe didn't show up for the experiment," Noll stated flatly. "He's the wrong age for it to be likely that he has latent PK ability, but so are the others. Mrs. Watanabe is too old, and Gen and Nazumi are too young. Also, like the others, he was around for all of the reported incidents."

Lin paused to consider the implied question – God forbid Noll actually express doubt.

"Ideally, he would have come," Lin admitted. "However, as he is middle-aged and male, he is the least likely candidate for an already unlikely cause. If the experiment fails to turn up results, we won't tell them what it was for, and we can perform it again when he is present. His absence shouldn't be too detrimental to the case."

Noll nodded, reassured.

"Then, we're done here," he said. "There's nothing more to do on the case until tomorrow."

* * *

**Chapter 18: Take-away and Lakes**

Noll clicked on the next link, determinedly ignoring the knocking on his door.

"Noll!" Lin called, not yet concerned, but patience wearing thin.

With a last lingering look and an annoyed sigh, Noll acquiesced to the inevitable and answered the door.

"Yes," he said flatly.

Lin eyed the younger boy curiously. After Noll had declared further research on the house pointless – it was being pursued by the researchers at the BSPR and Noll had run out of leads – Lin had been left to his own devices for the remaining afternoon. As lovely as that had been, afternoon had long since drained into the pale evening and was now darkening into night. Lin wondered what Noll had done with his free time.

Whatever the boy had chosen, Lin was quite confident that it hadn't involved dinner. Noll would eat if it occurred to him or if he felt so inclined, but it was much lower on his list of priorities than anything related to his work. Thus, a potential food snob was lost. Often, when Noll was working on something that lasted more than a few days, the job of providing food to be absentmindedly consumed during work was left to whoever cared. Right now, that was Lin.

"I was going to go get some take-away," Lin said.

Noll regarded him with utter disinterest and a disdain that implied Lin obviously should have known better than to approach him with information of so little relevance to the investigation.

"Would you like to come?" Lin prompted.

Noll's look of disdain now mingled with one of disbelief.

"I'd rather not," he replied.

"Do you care what I get?" Lin tried again.

"Not especially. If that's all?"

As Noll turned to go inside, Lin found himself reaching out to catch the boy's shoulder mid-departure. Lin wasn't sure why he did it. He just felt like he was missing something important lurking under their mundane conversation, and he worried that it was something he needed to know.

Noll's expression of feigned, polite interest provided no answers.

"I'll stop in when I get back," Lin said, struggling to find something to say. It didn't matter what words he chose; there was an unspoken barrier around Noll, and Lin wasn't ready to be the one to break it. Someone else would have to do it some other day.

"Okay."

Noll returned to his hotel room to look at pictures of Ashinoko Lake from another angle.

As promised, Lin returned a short while later bearing the white, wax-coated containers of some sort of vegetable curry, chosen for its familiarity. He knew that it was supposed to be thicker, sweeter, and just generally a bit different from the curry eaten in England, but he assumed Noll would be too busy to notice and probably wouldn't care even if he did.

"Noll," he called, barely bothering to knock this time.

Noll's response was more prompt than last time, perhaps because he recognized immediately that Lin was not going to allow himself to be ignored. This time, however, Noll couldn't be bothered to answer the door.

"You have a key," Noll called in reply. "You can come in."

Having been granted somewhat dubious permission to enter – there was a definite possibility that "You can come in." meant "I acknowledge that I can't stop you from coming in." – Lin opened the door.

He found Noll sitting on the couch, his laptop resting on the table in front of him turned so that Lin could not see the screen. Lin placed the food beside the computer without too much concern about the secrecy. Noll was not a normal teenager in many ways, and the sort of trouble he attracted could not be found on the internet. Lin prepared to leave and allow the boy his privacy.

Then again, Noll was not a normal teenager in many ways. Lin paused. He remembered last night when he had let Noll walk away, believing that everything would be fine in the morning. It eventually was, but Lin suspected that he had somehow failed as the boy's temporary guardian when he had missed whatever he had missed that night. There was no excuse for making the same mistake twice.

"Do you mind if I join you?" Lin asked. He hadn't wanted to be sent to Japan, but he would take care of Noll as promised.

Noll gave Lin a considering look.

"If you like," he replied after a moment.

Lin sat down on the edge of the couch that was as far away from Noll as possible and ate his meal without further attempts at conversation. Having gained temporary acceptance, Lin knew that he had to wait. Aside from occasional plotting, Noll was private and slow to share, not secretive; he would be willing to tell all eventually.

After a several minutes of silence, Lin deemed it safe to continue.

"You're working on something," he began.

Noll looked up from the screen. He didn't enter the conversation, but he also didn't tell Lin that the project was not his concern. Lin considered that a positive start.

"Would you be willing to tell me what it is?" Lin asked.

The guarded, considering expression on Noll's face returned. Then he nodded, reaching a decision, and moved closer to Lin who peered inquisitively at the image on the screen before him.

Lin allowed himself the duration of a long blink to feel much older and much wearier than the twenty-six years he had lived could take responsibility for.

He opened his eyes again and regarded the now-visible image of a lake with resignation.

"I assume this isn't the one," he said.

"No," Noll replied, and Lin could almost believe the surface-deep serenity of his voice. "It doesn't seem to be."

"Of course," Noll continued, carefully bland words concealing a cold current of despondency, "it's possible that it is this lake, and simply not the right part of the lake. I'll add it to the list of less likely possibilities, but I cannot eliminate it entirely."

"Naturally," Lin agreed softly.

Noll didn't seem to hear the reply. He was already sinking back into image after image of Japanese lakes.

Lin waited in silence until the younger boy began to eat absentmindedly. Then, satisfied that he had done all that could reasonably be expected of him and plagued by the nagging sense that it wouldn't be enough, Lin returned to his own room. The haunting green scenery remained with Noll.

* * *

_**A/N: **Did anyone else notice the title of a Doctor Who episode that I accidently stuck in here? Oh well._

_**Next time:** Part of the case is solved, the elusive Mr. Watanabe returns, and Lin is reminded why Noll wasn't allowed to go to Japan alone._


	5. Flowers in the Haunted Library - Day 3

**Section 5: Flowers in the Haunted Library – Day 3**

_**Author's Note:** Only one more section after this until the case is solved! I could use some feedback on what you'd like to see happen next. Originally, I was going to leave out anything covered in the anime or manga, but it leaves weird gaps in the story. Would you mind that some of the cases and scenes aren't new if I cover them from perspectives other than Mai's? They'll be the same stories, but Noll's a vastly different character and he's off-screen a lot, so it should still be kind of new. Does that sound like something you'd read?_

_**Disclaimer:** As always, I don't own Ghost Hunt._

* * *

**Chapter 19: Procedure for Nightmares**

Lin awoke a little after eight with only a mild feeling of surprise that Noll hadn't already dragged him off to work on the case. The other day had been an anomaly. While Noll seemed to outsiders to be awake at all times during a case, it was well known at the BSPR that he wasn't a morning person. Anyone who had the misfortune of meeting the boy before nine at the absolute earliest knew that the safest option was to hand him a cup of tea, say a polite goodbye, and run. It was one of the first lessons that cocky new interns learned about the workings of the BSPR and the child Doctor Davis.

Lin was not new to the BSPR and was pleased not to have to deal with Noll or the case that morning. Nevertheless, his relaxation held an undercurrent of unspecified disquiet that grew as seconds ticked into hours and soon eight a.m. became eleven. Noll had yet to emerge.

While Noll had undoubtedly slept later than eleven before without there being any cause for concern, Lin couldn't shake the feeling that something was wrong. Since he was a parapsychologist rather than an over-protective and uncertain first-time parent, he decided to trust his instinct.

"Noll," he called softly, knocking on the boy's door. When he had waited an appropriate amount of time without response, he let himself in.

In retrospect, Lin suspected that he should have anticipated the sight that awaited him. However, Luella, Martin, and even Madoka had always been responsible for Noll's general well-being. Lin's involvement in Noll's life had been limited to helping him control his powers, and thus, though Lin knew more about Noll's abilities and the exact extent to which they were controlled than anyone other than the Davis twins themselves, his knowledge of the boy was limited.

As someone not driven by an obsession with answers and guilt over a search that had yet to find any, Lin had believed that, eventually, Noll would acquiesce to the necessity of sleep and give up his research for the night. He was therefore surprised to find the boy sprawled on top of the scratchy hotel comforter, fully clothed in his increasingly familiar black, sound asleep. Noll's laptop lay to one side with a blue sticky-note on the back reading Ryuki Kimura – November 17, 2003. To his other side, there were piles of maps and hiking guidebooks, all open to images of lakes.

Lin marveled at Noll's ability to look even more tired asleep than awake. The shadows under the boy's eyes seemed darker when they weren't offset by his cool confidence, and Lin would describe his expression as reluctantly unconscious rather than peaceful. Apparently, slumber was no respite from the burdens and cares of the waking world.

Lin did note, with something resembling amusement, that the apparent spontaneity of Noll's repose was misleading. The bathroom door was open and a toothbrush, toothpaste, and floss lay scattered across the counter. Noll was the only child – or person of any age for that matter – Lin had ever met who would realize that he wasn't going to be able to stay awake for much longer, brush his teeth, and resume work. It reflected an unusual combination of propriety and stubborn rebelliousness.

As he regarded Noll again, Lin considered letting him sleep. The Watanabe case had in all likelihood waited weeks before it was brought to the SPR; it could wait a few more hours for its lead investigator to be ready. With his decision made, Lin turned to depart quietly.

He would have walked out the door then, if he hadn't heard a faint whine from his sleeping charge. The boy's face twitched, relaxed, and then twitched again as if trying to brush off something unpleasant. Nightmare. Again.

"Noll," Lin said, shaking his arm gently.

Oddly enough, this was a procedure written in Noll's file in the BSPR on the off-chance that someone other than Madoka or the Davises was this close to him during a case. It had to have been written by the Professor, because Lin could not imagine Luella deciding to type the words "Procedure for Nightmares". It was probably her concern, however, that prompted Martin's file. During the early cases before nightmares became a rarity, Luella discovered that Noll would immediately forget the dream upon awakening as long as it hadn't progressed too far. In that way, he was much easier to deal with than Gene who never forgot. The problems only came when Noll was left alone long enough for the nightmare to seep into his reality.

Lin hadn't anticipated ever using this procedure until the night Madoka burst into his hotel room after distracting Noll from the green walls. After that, he knew that it was only a matter of time. Lin felt sorry for the kid as he watched him surface from whatever horror his mind had dragged him into. He tried to wake the boy as soothingly as possible.

Noll opened his eyes slowly, looking at Lin with fear for a brief moment before it was replaced by confusion.

"Why are you waking me up so early?" Noll asked.

His voice was cold, as usual, but it held a note of bewilderment. That was good. It meant that he didn't remember the dream and was instead caught in the confusing half-reality everyone who is not a morning person experiences after waking.

"It's after eleven," Lin replied brusquely. "Get up if you want to work on the case today."

With that, he left the room. All of the tenderness Lin had shown towards his dreaming charge had disappeared the moment that Noll was awake to see it.

Noll dragged himself into a fairly upright position, convincing himself that he cared enough about the case to remain awake. He'd been up late as he'd had no intention of sleeping until he found the answers that he knew were waiting for him somewhere in the vast expanses of the internet. Everything he sought was somewhere, and he would find it. He just hadn't managed to find it that night.

As he buttoned a fresh shirt, he caught sight of his haunted blue eyes in the mirror. Even when he stared his reflection directly in the eyes, it seemed that the eyes looking back at him were focused on something else in the distance.

In short, Noll felt off, but not in a way that he could define.

He suspected that he'd dreamt something unpleasant and reminded himself that he never remembered his dreams. As he brushed his hair, he told himself that he couldn't see his hands shaking. He didn't imagine Gene's face in the moment that he realized the car was about to hit him a second time and that he was never going to return home. He didn't half expect – or was it hope – that his reflection would smile back at him despite his own scowl. He didn't mind the silence in his mind that Gene's telepathic presence used to fill. He didn't care that he was alone.

This was his daily mantra.

It was time to work.

* * *

**Chapter 20: Confusion and Answers**

Mrs. Watanabe was outside working in her garden when the rented SPR van pulled into the driveway. Her greeting didn't quite reach Noll. Instead, it parted around the impenetrable silence in his head like a stream around an especially unyielding rock. The sound had too much motion to coexist with the stillness.

"I'm so glad you're here!" she called, relief easily audible in her voice.

Before Noll could realize that common courtesy necessitated a response, the front door burst open and the Watanabe children came spilling out.

"Mr. Shibuya! Mr. Lin!" Gen yelled. He ran down the path and kept running until he was close enough to reach out and hug Noll. He then promptly did so. After Noll overcame his initial alarm at the unexpected contact, he was both concerned and intrigued to note that the younger boy seemed to be trembling.

Nazumi skidded to a halt in front of the paranormal investigators with less than her usual dignity.

"You're here," she said. Then, to her surprise as much as Noll's, she hugged him too.

Noll stood awkwardly for a moment before placing what he hoped was a reassuring hand on each child's back. He wasn't overly comfortable with children – or people in general for that matter – but he wasn't heartless.

"Something new has happened?" he asked Mrs. Watanabe.

She sighed. Up close, she looked almost as shaken as her children, with dark smudges around her eyes and a haggard expression.

"Not new, per say," she replied. "We've heard knocking on the walls before, but previously only coming from the library. This time it was all around the outside wall of the house and Gen said that he could hear someone crying."

"Not someone," Gen interrupted, finally releasing Noll. "A woman. I saw her outline in the window."

"It was dark, love," Mrs. Watanabe contradicted lightly.

"Gen described the previous apparition as 'a sort of blue-white glowy thing'," Nazumi interjected with utter solemnity. "'Glowy', to use his preferred term, implies that the apparition could have in fact been seen at night."

"See," Gen said. "Even Nazumi the Eternal Skeptic believes me. I don't see why you and dad don't. I'd think you at least would since you were the one who wanted a paranormal investigator."

Lin and Noll both regarded Noll's ever-present black notebook with the kind of intense concentration that could explain temporary deafness. It was their preferred tactic for coping with uncomfortable conversations.

"Well," Noll said when it appeared that the Watanabes were finished, "we will stay tonight to observe any further activity that occurs. In the mean time, we should check the data collected last night. I am sorry that you were troubled by the knocking again, but it may prove useful to the investigation."

"That's actually quite nice to hear," Mrs. Watanabe said, ushering everyone inside. "It makes me feel like our experience served a purpose."

With that, she left, accompanied by Gen and Nazumi after some encouragement and promises that they could help later. The Watanabes couldn't be present for the results of the auto-suggestion experiment in case it had to be performed a second time.

When only Lin and Noll remained, they studied the entrance to the guest room carefully. The seal that Lin had placed on the door remained in place, untorn and uncreased. It appeared that the room had not been entered in the night. Any change to the room was therefore due to latent PK.

Any change to the room _should_ have been due to latent PK.

Noll froze in disbelief.

As improbable as it had seemed that the vase would move at all, that it now lay shattered on the floor was perhaps the least astonishing sight. Almost every other small object had moved as well. Books and trinkets that had sat unmoved and forgotten since the day they were placed on their shelves were now strewn about the room haphazardly. The pillows had slid from the bed, and the cushions from the couch now balanced precariously at the edge of the end-table.

Lin observed it all with surprise and mild annoyance. He had been led to believe that this phenomenon only occurred in the library, so it was highly unusual and unfortunate to find it at the site of the experiment.

Noll observed it all in utter shock. The experiment had been inconclusive. The experiment was never inconclusive, and yet this time it was. The vase had moved, which indicated that one of the Watanabes had latent psychokinetic ability, but just about everything else had moved too, which was, frankly, not normal. It meant that the positive result of the experiment could just be a coincidence, and regardless, Noll had missed something.

He wandered aimlessly around the room inspecting everything.

"Kazuya," Lin called softly. He met Noll's eyes and could see the thoughts whirring behind them so quickly that the words became white noise.

"Kazuya," he said again.

Noll blinked slowly a couple of times.

"We should check the camera and temperature gauge," he said, regrouping. "We might still be able to see why the experiment failed."

Lin nodded and, correctly assuming that "we" was him, did as he was told.

"The temperature of this room showed no unexpected fluctuations during the night," Lin said. "The objects all moved during a period of about ten minutes a little after eleven. It looks a lot like uncontrolled PK."

Noll looked abruptly up from his own work.

"The temperature in the library dropped and the camera there showed static during that time as well, though the activity there lasted much longer than ten minutes. The secondary temperature drop also appeared again and the times partially coincide," Noll said.

He leaned forward on the couch intently.

"It could be PK, if whoever caused the vase and other objects to move was frightened by whatever caused the temperature drops . . . That hypothesis still includes at least one spirit . . . It doesn't behave like latent PK though . . . It's more like. . ."

The first few phrases were said aloud, but Noll quickly lapsed into silence. Then, he suddenly stood up, muttered something about checking other cameras, and was gone. Lin was a bit disappointed, because he hadn't followed Noll all the way to his latest conclusion, but he let the boy go. If he was honest with himself, Lin knew that he had been lucky to hear that much of the explanation. Only Gene (or Madoka with a lot of wheedling) was ever given a hypothesis and rationale before it had been tested.

That still wasn't going to stop Lin from trying.

"Anything interesting?" he asked tonelessly when Noll returned.

"Nothing that needs to be dealt with now," the boy replied ambiguously. "It still looks like there's a spirit in the library and possibly a second one, a woman, outside if Gen's to be believed. For now, we should continue to investigate the identity of the spirits."

"Kimura," Lin suggested. He hoped Noll wouldn't be too angry at being forced to share this theory early. After all, Lin's actual intent when he discovered it was to spare Noll from a nightmare rather than to snoop.

"Perhaps," Noll admitted grudgingly. "We can try a séance tonight if you like."

Lin nodded.

"Tonight, then," he agreed.

Noll smirked quietly to himself as he puzzled over the secondary temperature drop. He hadn't planned for Lin to discover the Kimura lead, but Noll was fairly confident about it at this point – though he would continue the psychometric readings in the library – and it served as the perfect distraction from his other discovery.

At the thought of the other discovery, his smug smile fell into his usual expression of slightly haunted indifference. He had seen the footage from the camera in the hallway. He had watched the small girl in pink sit and cry outside of the empty guest room for ten minutes a little after eleven, her face blocked by her soft sleeve and dark hair. He had watched knowing that he had chosen to leave the room empty, knowing that he was going to have to tell her eventually why the books in the library flew.

Once, there had been a very young, very frightened boy in a similar position, and when he was told, it was a kindness. Finally, he knew what was happening; finally, someone believed him. The pain and fear came again later.

Still, even with the complete understanding that the issue had to be dealt with before the case could end, Noll wanted to cleanse the spirits first. Finding the identity of the ghosts remained his top priority.

* * *

**Chapter 21: An Introduction to PK**

"Mr. Shibuya . . . Mr. Shibuya . . ."

Noll felt strangely detached from his body, as if his spirit hadn't quite reconnected properly when he returned from the land of the Kimura's memories. He'd spent another hour – Was it another hour? He'd lost track of time somewhere around the third shelf of books. – trying to discover the reason for the male ghost. It was sufficient that Mrs. Kimura had committed suicide, but there was no reason for Mr. Kimura who had remarried, moved, and died of old age years later to be a ghost. Noll had yet to find an explanation.

He wished he could keep working, put in just a little bit more effort and put the spirit to rest before he had to tell the Watanabes the other reason for the paranormal activity, but he knew that he had already pushed himself beyond his limit for the day. Any more would be stupidity not strength. Noll had been called many things and deserved most of them, but he was far from stupid. The search would continue tomorrow.

"Yes, Nazumi," he said.

A look of profound relief flashed across her face before it was replaced by uncertainty.

"It's just – it's getting late," she said. "It'll be dusk soon and then, well, night's when the ghost comes out. I was wondering if we should maybe be . . . leaving?"

"We'll go find Lin, and then he and I will monitor the library," Noll replied. "You and Gen are not to go anywhere near the library until morning. If you see anything strange elsewhere and I'm in the library, yell. Don't come in. Whatever the situation, Lin or I will come out and help."

Nazumi blinked thoughtfully, trying to decide if she was okay with that. Mr. Shibuya's tone was flat and it all sounded like an order – Nazumi didn't like be told what to do – but it also sounded like he was keeping her safe from the scary things she couldn't see. She decided that was fine.

"Okay," she said. "I'll tell Gen."

She assumed that Mr. Shibuya heard her, because with that said, he turned to leave. Nazumi scurried alongside him, not noticing that he was watching her out of the corner of his eye. She was never in any danger of being left behind.

Noll found Lin and Gen standing in the hallway outside of the library. Apparently, Nazumi was not the only one who noticed it was getting dark and who thought perhaps it was time to go somewhere safer than the most haunted room in the house.

"You two should continue your evening as if we aren't here," Noll said, not realizing how prophetic that statement was about to become. "Just be sure to tell us if you notice anything unusual."

Before Gen or Nazumi could agree, it began. The conversation was interrupted by the sharp click of the front door slamming shut and the sound of two sets of footsteps. Routine in the Watanabe household carried on exactly as it had when the members of the SPR had returned to their hotel previous nights.

"Dad's home early," Gen commented blandly. That was alarming in and of itself. Gen was not a bland person.

"Gen," Nazumi whined in trepidation. She didn't have any particular comment; she just needed some sound with which she could try to convey her anxiety. Her brother's name happened to be the first word that fell into her mind.

"We should go say hi," Gen continued, ignoring her protest. He took his little sister's hand and led her down the hallway.

Noll was left standing awkwardly with Lin.

"Should we . . . ?" Noll began uncertainly, so quietly it seemed like he was talking to himself.

Something was wrong. Noll couldn't explain it, he knew he wasn't the clairvoyant twin, and maybe he was just reflecting the Watanabe children's fear, but none of that changed his absolute certainty that something was wrong.

"There's nothing we can do," Lin replied mildly.

"It's just . . ."

Noll didn't have a convincing end to that sentence. Instead, he had memories of the types of cases the Davises had tried to shelter him from. Sometimes he and Gene went snooping (and oh how they regretted it); sometimes they didn't know what type of case it was going to be until Gene connected with the spirit or Noll used psychometry. Regardless, Noll had seen children involved in a lot of horrors that he was years too late to stop.

He'd also spent enough time in an orphanage to hear the stories and gain a certain distrust of adults even without the cases.

Lin knew all of this. He also knew that, while bad parenting was almost certainly at play, neither of the Watanabe children had a mark on them. Noll saw the children's fear and unconsciously placed it into his awful, skewed frame of reference in which children lived happily with parents like the Davises or they lived in fear with monsters. There were no alternatives. Noll saw a story belonging on cable news at eleven instead of a fairly ordinary family with an impending divorce and confused children.

"They'll be fine," Lin reassured Noll firmly, pulling him into the room that served as base.

"Years of therapy later," Lin's thoughts echoed traitorously. It was probably accurate, but Noll didn't need to hear it. He and Gene had always reacted more on instinct than fact where children were concerned. If the children were afraid, then something was catastrophically wrong and they would stop at nothing to fix it. Lin suspected it was because, until the Davises, no one had believed the twins that Gene's nightmares were of ghosts and that Noll couldn't help it that things broke when he was upset. Nevertheless, Noll needed to realize that not everything that went wrong was paranormal or criminal.

"But . . . we can't . . ." Noll protested incoherently.

He was so tense that Lin could almost hear the anger and uncertainty vibrating in his taut muscles. Lin was, however, happy to note that his powers remained completely under control.

He pushed the boy into a chair. This wasn't the first time he'd watched one of the Davis twins persist in an emotionally charged and futile pursuit, and, contrary to what one might expect, Noll was often not the voice of reason.

"Listen to me," Lin insisted. "Nazumi and Gen are fine. From what I've gathered – and I know you have as well – their parents are arguing and they don't quite know what's happening, but they know they don't like it. It's a normal reaction when parents divorce and it accounts for their actions in the hallway. It's not anything you can fix, and there's no need for you to intervene. Okay?"

Noll pinched the bridge of his nose.

"I surmised as much from a conversation I had with Mrs. Watanabe on our first day," he said, recovering quickly.

To be honest, he had forgotten. He blamed it on his overuse of psychometry and the discovery of the shattered vase. He was always willing to admit to being tired and preoccupied when it allowed him to avoid confessing to an emotional reaction.

It would have been different if Gene had been there. He would have rushed to Nazumi and Gen's aid without concern for propriety or the lack of actual, solvable problems, and Noll would have been right there with him. The same instinct that drove him to follow Gene caused him to lose sight of the situation.

It happened; Noll was fine; time to move on.

Noll stood up and glared impassively at the monitors. It wasn't that he had anything in particular against his tools of research; they just happened to be there when he needed something to glare at.

He leaned closer to the screen.

"Lin," he said urgently. "Check the temperature in the library."

"It's at ten degrees and dropping," Lin replied, his eyes widening. He turned the audio as high as it would go. Loud knocking rang out from each or the speakers and the screens went dark.

"Damn," Noll swore. "We've lost visual feed."

He walked briskly to the doorway, prepared to go to the library and continue observing in person. Lin accompanied him immediately. He had the highest respect for Noll's abilities as an investigator, but the boy's tendency to act as ghost bait was something he would happily live without.

A crash and a scream sent both of the investigators racing away from their original destination, to the Watanabes.

"Just stop! Stop it! Make it stop!" Nazumi screamed. Her voice increased in insistence and pitch with every repetition of "stop".

Noll ran faster, quickly outstripping Lin despite their comparative heights. Unlike Lin, Noll already knew what he would see when he reached the terrified girl, and it motivated him to run.

As expected, he found Nazumi cowering on the floor by the front door, shoes, coats, and loose change swirling in the air around her, just like the books that had flown when she was frightened in the library. Though the scene had nothing on Noll's early poltergeists, it was a relatively impressive demonstration of PK, and Nazumi was alone at the center of it.

The other Watanabes stood slightly removed from the chaos. Gen and Mrs. Watanabe hovered desperately at the edge of the disturbance. It wasn't that they didn't want to help; it was just that the psychokinetic storm was a far cry from a scraped knee or a broken toy. This wasn't something they'd ever had to deal with.

Mr. Watanabe stood a bit further away. The serious man in the expensive suit wanted to help every bit as much as his wife and son did, but he only watched with mingled horror and disbelief. The stories his wife told, the stories he had passed off as delusion, came to life in front of him.

"Gen!" Nazumi screamed.

"I don't see it," he replied frantically. "I don't see the ghost anywhere. I don't know what's happening."

"Nazumi."

Noll's calm voice easily cut through the swirling panic in the room. He was the professional, and he took charge.

"I need you to take a deep breath in. Can you do that?" he asked, his voice firm, but gentle.

"I can't!" she shrieked.

Noll flinched internally at the hint of hysteria. That was going to complicate things.

"Don't worry about the flying objects," Noll said, trying once more to calm her. "Just breathe in, and try to feel the fear and excess energy settling when you exhale . . . Nazumi."

Even when Noll slipped into the smooth speech pattern he used for hypnotism, the terrified girl showed no signs of responding. He gave up.

"Gen," he ordered, "Your sister's going to be fine, but she needs to calm down. Go help her."

Gen hesitated, looking doubtfully at his parents and fearfully at the storm around his sister.

Noll blinked in frustration. He knew that it was still his job to act as the polite, composed investigator in contrast to the confusion around him, but he was tired of staying in character. Gen needed to play the role of older brother, and Noll expected him to do so immediately.

He seized the younger boy's arm determinedly – not roughly, Noll was never rough – and pulled him under a particularly violent sweater.

"Now help her," the ghost hunter insisted.

Gen felt safer in the eye of the storm, more in control. He looked softly at his panicking little sister. He still didn't have a clue what was happening, but if the key to fixing everything was getting Nazumi to calm down, he could do that.

"It's okay," he soothed, pulling her into his arms. "You're alright."

"It's not okay!" she disagreed. "It's not! It's not. It's . . ."

Her voice trailed off as she nestled into the contour of his shoulder. Everything in the air drifted slowly to the ground. There was a moment of silence in which Nazumi cried and the rest of the world was still.

"What the hell was that supposed to be?" Mr. Watanabe demanded.

Noll turned slowly to face the newcomer.

"PK-ST," he replied flatly. "It's a form of psychokinesis." Seeing uncomprehending expressions, he elaborated, "She can move stationary objects with her mind. Your daughter's abilities appear to be at the upper end of normal levels, so she will need to train so that she doesn't lose control of her powers along with her emotions."

"You think you can just come barging in here and tell me that my daughter's some kind of psychic? It has to be some kind of trick! It –"

Noll looked thoughtfully around the entryway, the tirade washing over him like the gentle evening wind. Nazumi had begun to calm down and Gen seemed to be taking the news relatively well. Mrs. Watanabe was arguing in the SPR's defense.

Noll caught Lin's eye and the older man nodded, so he left. Lin had already proved to be quite capable of teaching distraught children to control PK and he was in expert in the field. Noll's time could be put to better use than sitting through another introduction to qigong.

* * *

**Chapter 22: Discovery**

Noll shivered as he lifted his too-heavy hand from the cover of another book on business management. He knew that feeling. He knew that he was being reckless, and he knew that there would inevitably be consequences, but he'd given the Watanabes enough to deal with. It was time to get rid of the ghosts and leave. At least Noll had thought to take the books out of the haunted library and into the infinitely safer guest room. That should count for something.

The Watanabes were still near where Noll had left them with Lin. They had all adjourned to the sitting room to continue the discussion quietly, agreement that Nazumi's powers did in fact exist having finally been reached.

Nazumi yawned and snuggled into her fuzzy blanket. She'd lost track of the conversation long ago and Gen was already asleep.

"I believe I can provide you with a list of possible teachers for Nazumi without her assistance," Lin hinted mildly.

Mrs. Watanabe smiled in gratitude.

"Of course," she said. "Nazumi, darling, time to wake up so you can sleep in your own room. Gen –"

Nazumi stretched sleepily and said goodnight to her parents and finally, outside the door to her room, her brother. She paused for a moment. Having had a nice nap while the adults planned, Nazumi wasn't ready to sleep again yet. She wanted to talk to Mr. Shibuya. She wasn't sure what she wanted to ask him exactly. It just seemed like he'd known something more about what was happening when she was screaming and everything was flying than Mr. Lin had said. She just wanted to know what was going to happen to her now.

"Mr. Shibuya," she called, knocking on the door of the base. After a long pause without a reply, she peered tentatively in.

"Mr. Shibuya?" There was no one there.

Nazumi almost decided to give up and go back to bed, but then she remembered that the ghosts Gen saw were still around. She wanted to ask about them too. She wanted to hear again that the ghost hunters would deal with them.

"Mr. Shibuya," she called, knocking on the door of the guest room.

Again, there was no answer, but this time, he really did have to be there. The only other unchecked possibility was the haunted library, and both Mr. Lin and Mr. Shibuya agreed that no one was to go in there alone.

She'd take a peek, and if Mr. Shibuya was asleep, she'd talk to him tomorrow.

He wasn't asleep.

The older boy sat rigidly at the desk with his open palm lying on top of one of the books she'd looked at with him in the library. Stacks of books from the same shelves had been placed around him. Nazumi felt a wave of apprehension.

"Mr. Shibuya," she said, hoping that whatever that thing was that kept happening in the library wasn't happening again. Maybe he was just reading.

Her hopes proved false when he failed to respond. Nazumi inched a little closer. The room was lit by a cold, fluorescent light, but none of it reflected off of Mr. Shibuya's wide, glazed eyes.

Nazumi waited. Every time he'd frozen like this in the library, he had resumed working as if nothing had happened mere moments later. This time, he wasn't waking up.

Nazumi had had enough freaky stuff happen to her for one night. She ran quietly down the hall to find Mr. Lin.

"Nazumi," her father scolded when she reached the room with the adults. "I distinctly remember your mother telling you to go to bed."

She ignored him without the faintest pang of guilt. She came with a mission.

"Mr. Lin," she began determinedly. "There's something wrong with Mr. Shibuya. He's –"

"Where?" Lin interrupted.

Nazumi blinked, startled at how quickly the investigator had reacted without having been given any details. Normally adults needed to check her story before racing to the rescue.

"The guest room," she stammered.

Lin was already gone. Nazumi paused, but decided to follow. She didn't know what was happening, but she would see it through to completion.

* * *

**Chapter 23: Confrontation**

Lin knew something had gone terribly wrong the moment Nazumi raced uncharacteristically unhesitatingly into the room. Of course, he'd assumed that it had something to do with the ghosts. When she'd uttered Noll's alias instead, the shock had struck him as powerfully as any physical blow.

That reckless, egotistical, damaged fool. It was unfathomable to Lin that Noll would take such a risk so soon after his last trip to the hospital. Granted, Lin didn't actually know what the boy had done this time, but he could easily guess. "Something wrong" meant that Noll hadn't been able to tell Nazumi what was wrong (or more likely that he was fine and that it was not her concern). The only one typically responsible for putting Noll in that condition was Noll. He had to have used his powers again.

Lin's fears were both confirmed and alleviated the moment he threw open the door to the guest room. Noll had indeed used his powers, but he'd used psychometry instead of PK. Though the psychological effects were probably worse than those of PK overuse, the physical trauma was minimal. Another hospital trip could, in all likelihood, be avoided. Nevertheless, Lin didn't even want to contemplate the amount of psychometry required to make Noll that pale. He looked as much like a ghost as the apparitions he investigated.

Lin couldn't decide if the flash of frustrated rage that coursed through him at the sight of his overtaxed charge was directed at the boy or at himself. As much as both of them deserved to be berated at length, – Noll for his thoughtlessness and Lin for his neglect – Lin had other matters to deal with first.

"Kazuya," he said urgently.

Noll remained frozen and distant, his mind decades away from his physical form.

"Kazuya," Lin said again, more concern and anger bleeding into his voice.

The young parapsychologist made no reply. Lin clenched one hand into a fist and released it, his eyes half closed as he braced himself for what he had to do. The action was simple enough, but the forced abrupt end of the vision would be so much worse for Noll.

Still, it had to be done.

Lin steadied Noll with one hand and carefully pried the book away with his other. The moment the book was out of Noll's hands, his eyes narrowed into thin, unseeing slits. He slumped forward onto the desk. The movement would have sent him sprawling onto the floor if not for the stability provided by Lin's hand on his shoulder.

"Kazuya," Lin repeated firmly.

The boy responded immediately. He rose determinedly onto unsteady feet, unwilling to appear weak. The moment of impossible strength lasted for only a few seconds as he took a step. The effort had been too much and not enough to send signals to his limbs from his distant brain.

It would have been so easy for Lin to scoop the younger boy into his arms and deposit him on the bed unharmed. It would have been so easy if either of them could relinquish their pride and allow it. Instead, Lin just watched Noll stagger and guided his fall so that he didn't get hurt.

They both stayed where they fell. Noll managed to push himself up so that he was kneeling, his fists the only things keeping his head off of the floor. Lin knelt silently beside him, waiting for him to find himself again.

This was the part of Noll's visions that scared Lin the most. He had never been especially frightened by the paranormal and he had spent too many years on the receiving end of the chilling glare that he knew he would soon be given to be afraid of it, but he had never known what to do when Noll seemed so limp and small. Madoka would have been the better chaperone by far.

"I'm probably supposed to record this for the SPR," Lin mused, recalling that chaperone was his unofficial job. Officially, he was there to observe and study the young psychic.

Noll took a shuddering breath that might have been a laugh.

"Mr. Shibuya?" a soft, tentative voice asked from the doorway. Nazumi.

Noll sat up and opened his eyes.

"Lin," he ordered, his voice a little hoarse but quickly regaining its usual commanding tone.

Lin obeyed the unspoken demand and politely shooed away the child. Then, he shut the door regretfully, knowing that it warned Noll of the confrontation that was soon to come.

"What were you thinking?" Lin asked, trying and failing to keep the condemnation out of his voice.

Noll's eyes were open now, and they glared frostily back at Lin.

"I had my reasons," he replied coolly. "It's my case, and we ran out of viable leads. As lead investigator, I decided on a new strategy. Besides, I was only under strict orders not to do anything too strenuous. Unlike all but the most minor uses of PK, psychometry involves very little energy. "

"You just got out of the hospital," Lin reminded him heatedly.

"Yes," Noll answered smoothly. "That was hardly my fault. Given the choice, I would rather my brother not have been murdered."

He stared determinedly at the closed window, avoiding the gaze of his concerned and exasperated companion. Conversation over.

It wasn't though. Lin hadn't yet succeeded or given up in his misuse-of-psychic-powers intervention.

"This has to stop," Lin insisted. "Even if you're right and the energy use isn't enough to hurt you – which it will be eventually – you're leaving yourself wide open by reading so many objects. Don't try to lie to me or deflect. I can see your light on at all hours of the night and I've woken you up from the nightmares. Even now, your mental wall is almost completely down, isn't it?"

Noll turned slowly to face Lin. His face held the briefest flicker of something before returning to its emotionless state. When he spoke, his voice was calm, but held a slight undercurrent of something darker.

"Our research found nothing of use. If only we had . . . a reliable medium," Noll replied, "he or she would discover the origin of the spirit and how to cleanse it. We don't. Not anymore. We have me and I have psychometry. I'm doing what Madoka told me to and solving a case."

The argument invoked Madoka's name, and Gene's, though unspoken, hung suspended in the brittle stillness. Lin gave up.

He did his best to be mature and close the door gently behind him.

* * *

**A/N:** I promise that my Noll torture in the last chapter served a purpose in the plot.

**Next time:** The case is solved!


	6. Flowers in the Haunted Library - Day 4

**Section 6: Flowers in the Haunted Library – Day 4**

_**Important Note About Updating:** The next update's probably going to be about a week later than usual, because I'm visiting family without wi-fi. That isn't the important bit. I generally avoid giving personal information, but since it affects updating: I start college at the end of August. I have no idea what that will do to when I update, since I'm rather new to the whole college thing (which is slightly terrifying). I do know that I got into my competitive, challenging, first choice school (yay me), and everyone seems to think that I'll have no free time. If I do drop off the face of the internet again like I did when I started the International Baccalaureate Program, that's why. I adore this story and my tech-oriented school is unlikely to improve my writing so much that I can't bear to look at it again, so even if I disappear for a while, I'll probably be back for Christmas break. Basically, I have no intention of abandoning this story. Assuming calculus review doesn't take up too much of my remaining summer (which no matter how much I worry about it, it won't), I should still be able to introduce the case at Mai's school before I leave. After that, au revoir, sorry, and please be patient. I plan on coming back._

_**Disclaimer:** I am but a (not so) humble soon-to-be college student and this is just something I do for fun. Ghost Hunt is in no way mine._

* * *

**Chapter 24: The First Lesson**

Noll blinked sleepily in the shade of a large, particularly leafy tree, allowing his mutinous façade to lapse. This act in no way signaled acceptance. Noll was extremely displeased with the situation, but he had admitted to himself that there was nothing he could do about it and continuing to sulk with dignity required concentration and energy that he couldn't muster at the moment.

He had been taken off the case. He couldn't officially be removed from the case, of course, but only because it was impossible to remove him completely and maintain the lie: that he was Shibuya Kazuya, owner of Shibuya Psychic Research. While this limited Lin's options, he could still take away Noll's laptop and books and refuse to let him go anywhere unaccompanied. Noll was lead investigator in title, but he had effectively been benched.

He had staged a silent and subtle protest when he'd initially been asked to "supervise" Nazumi's first lesson in qigong, standing haughtily with his arms folded in discontent. However, this pose was similar enough to his usual manner that Lin was able to ignore it with ease. Then, thirty minutes passed and Noll sat down. An hour into the lesson with nothing to do, he had passed through the many realms of boredom and arrived at aimless relaxation.

He couldn't even find the concentration to meditate alongside Lin and Nazumi. Noll's usually thinly veiled intensity and inner drive were lost somewhere on the other side of the dam of hazy turmoil in his mind, his remaining consciousness left with the surreal stillness of an artificial lake.

It was almost nice – if highly insulting – to be left sitting in slightly dazed silence. While Noll did feel a bit better after having slept well the night before, as he leaned back against the tree, he still felt the disjoint between his brain and limbs. Lin was right. His barrier was quite low.

Besides, in Noll's strictly structured list of priorities, the case was relatively unimportant. Only Gene mattered.

Because Noll had been strictly forbidden from doing anything remotely productive or interesting, he listened to Lin and Nazumi. It seemed that she had progressed (or more likely, haven given up for the day, moved on) from both the introduction to qigong and the basics of meditation to fundamental control of PK. Noll remembered that lesson. He wished her luck.

He watched as Nazumi shifted from her upright meditation pose to a more comfortable position. Lin's voice murmured quietly on, softer than the wind from where Noll was sitting, telling her to find the same mindset that she had attempted during meditation. Nazumi inhaled slowly, focusing intently on the ball she was supposed to be lifting. She exhaled, directing all of her energy and will towards her objective.

Nothing happened.

So far, it was going a lot better than Noll's first attempt. Thankfully, Gene had been there to exchange energy and a few choice words with, or the results would have been even worse for all concerned.

Nazumi's warm brown eyes narrowed in frustration. She inhaled again, and exhaled, louder than the first time. Her increased volume in no way increased her effectiveness. Once again, the ball lay tauntingly still.

She tried again and once more, her small hands clenching unconsciously as the unmoving ball mocked her.

She knew what she was supposed to do – or at least she was pretty sure she did – but she just couldn't do it! Nazumi, like many other clever children, had met little that she couldn't understand and was too young to have experienced and accepted the regrettable fact that comprehension was not the same thing as success. She couldn't lift the ball with PK, so she hated Lin, PK, and the ball. Her annoyance grew with each successive attempt.

Noll blinked again. It was a warm day, but the shade was pleasant, and a gentle breeze teased the ends of his hair. Unable to find the will to fight, he gave in to the purely physical peace. He was too comfortable to be invested in the outcome of the lesson.

Besides, he and Lin had never expected Nazumi to lift the ball on the first day. It would probably be weeks before she gained any consistency of control. It had been the same for Noll, whose abilities were even stronger and more unpredictable. Noll wondered if Lin had warned her that success was unlikely. He thought not.

He paused in a moment of indecision, wondering if he should step in before the inevitable occurred or just assume that Lin knew what he was doing. When it had been Gene's decision, Gene had sat by and let it happen, but he had been inexperienced and trusted the onmyouji's expertise. Actually, to be fair to Lin, Noll reflected, trusting him was usually fine. Trusting a young Noll to keep his temper was idiocy. Still, this time the decision was Noll's, not Gene's.

Noll smirked slightly to himself, childishly deciding that because he had been sidelined it was not his place to step in and diffuse the tension before something exploded. He was content to lounge with an air of dispassionate superiority and wait.

It didn't take long.

"Remember to keep breathing," Lin said blandly.

"I'm trying!" Nazumi shrieked, snapping suddenly. "I try. It doesn't work. You tell me to focus on my breathing. I do everything you say and it still doesn't work. I just can't do it, okay!"

Tears of pent-up frustration started streaming down her face, and with them came the trembling of nearby pebbles. The more Nazumi gave into her frustration, the more power she released until there was a small rock garden hovering in the air around her.

"Nazumi," Lin said firmly. "You have to calm down."

Noll sat back and watched it happen. Nazumi was the type of person to conceal her emotions, but she did not lock them in with the frightened determination of Noll as a child, as demonstrated by her tears. As a result, she would be much easier to reach. Since no one was in any danger and he was relegated to the role of observer, Noll decided that it was not his problem.

Gen – who sat on the other side of Lin and Nazumi, having been initially frightened off by the dark aura emanating from Noll – was supposed to be quietly observing as well, but he couldn't remain passive during Lin's impersonal attempt to regain calm.

"Nazumi!" Gen cried, racing to his sister's side. He wrapped his arms around her tightly and waited.

"I can't do it," she told him through a veil of tears. "He keeps expecting me to and I can't."

"That's okay," Gen soothed. "It's only your first day. Nothing ever works right on the first day. You'll be brilliant – you are brilliant – but you'll be brilliant at controlling your PK after you've had a few more lessons."

Nazumi's tearful eyes met Gen's reassuring ones.

"Promise?" she asked.

"Promise," he answered, glancing questioningly at Lin to confirm his heartfelt but empty assurances.

"He's right," the onmyouji confirmed. "Using PK safely takes practice, just like any other skill. I want you to try it a few more times and then you can take a break. Practice it on your own at some point."

"See?" Gen said with a smile. "Everything's going to be alright."

There was something in that smile, a strong, gentle light that echoed through time.

("It's okay, Noll. Mother and Father aren't mad and Mr. Lin's here to help. You don't have to feel bad about it," a boy with messy black hair and a blue jumper promised in reply to his brother's increasingly overt insults. An identical boy in a cream sweater stood frozen in his twin's embrace, trying desperately to believe him and to release every moveable object in the courtyard that hung in the air around them.)

Noll turned his head to the side slightly so that he was staring into a large pond rather than at the Watanabe children and closed his eyes. The edge of the water was a deep, murky green where it reflected an overhanging branch.

Logically, Noll was pleased that Nazumi had Gen to help her with her PK training. Really, he was. She was likely to progress more quickly and with fewer incidents with her brother's help, meaning that she would soon no longer be a danger to herself or others. Noll had therefore encouraged Gen's involvement. It was just that something too deep inside of his chest to be physical ached a bit as he watched the siblings.

He stood up to leave.

"Kazuya," Lin called, his voice urgent but of oblique tone. As much as he would have liked to, he couldn't expressly forbid his "boss" from going off alone in front of the clients.

"You are, I assume, able to finish Nazumi's lesson without my direct supervision," Noll called back with only a hint of snideness. "I'm going to see if there are any clues on the grounds as to why Gen saw the woman's spirit outside."

Lin regarded his charge thoughtfully. With a glance between Noll's inscrutable gaze and the Watanabe siblings, he decided that "looking for clues" was Noll for "going for a walk to clear my head".

"Of course," Lin replied. "I'll be finished with her lesson shortly, so call me if you need any assistance with the investigation."

Noll growled under his breath, recognizing the reminder to stay out of trouble lurking in his chaperone's innocent words. Nevertheless, Lin had agreed to let him go. He turned and left without another word.

* * *

**Chapter 25: The Pond Remembers**

It was still afternoon when Noll returned from his walk, but the air was filled with the rich, golden light that slowly gives way to evening.

He really hadn't needed to stay out so long. After the first fifteen or twenty minutes, the warm shadows of times gone had crept back into the recesses of his heart, leaving only a slight chill in their wake. The extra hour had simply been pride. Noll had told Lin that he was examining the yard, and so he had done exactly that to an exacting, scientific standard that was all but useless since Lin had taken away the little black notebook in which he would have recorded his observations. It didn't matter. Noll hadn't found anything.

He walked through the dappled sunlight filtered through the leaves above and emerged by the pond from which he had initially fled. There, he found Nazumi, leaning determinedly out over the water in a hopeless attempt to reach a miniature beach ball that had drifted too far away.

"Just a few more inches," she muttered, balancing precariously.

"Did you try using PK?" Noll asked.

Nazumi jumped in surprise, and then yelped as her unwatched hand slipped into the water.

"Hey," she said grouchily.

"I apologize for scaring you," Noll said, but quickly returned to the more important issue. "Have you tried PK?"

"You were there for most of my lesson," Nazumi grumbled, still out of sorts from her numerous failed attempts. "Do you think it matters if I tried PK? It won't work. And it's what caused this problem in the first place. I got the ball to hover for a second, but then I dropped it and it bounced out into the pond."

"Well then," Noll said. "You've made progress on your control from when I was last watching."

Her eyes widened in surprise at the unexpected compliment. That, Noll decided, showed that some progress could also be made with her attitude towards her PK. He tilted his head thoughtfully at her.

"Try to use PK to retrieve the ball," he ordered.

Nazumi said nothing, but glared reproachfully back at the paranormal investigator she normally idolized as if to wonder if he'd listened to a word she said.

"It won't work," she said eventually, elaborating on her silence.

"Probably not," Noll acknowledged, "but that's hardly important. While it's good that you know and admit to the limits of your abilities, you won't learn to use PK consistently unless you are willing to attempt and fail. Try one more time, and I'll retrieve the ball for you."

"You can use PK?" Nazumi asked, her eyes widening in shock.

With years of poltergeisting and perhaps the greatest PK demonstration ever given flickering in his memories, Noll replied, "My arms are longer than yours."

Nazumi blushed.

"Oh," she said, embarrassed by her hasty conclusion. "Of course. You can just reach."

Noll smiled reassuringly, that special smile he used when he needed to charm someone, his sincerity belied only by the lightlessness of his eyes. It worked, as it always did.

"Okay," she said, regaining her usual poise. "I'll do it."

Her face became serene, her eyes energized and focused as she concentrated on the ball. A faint tremor ran over it, creating tiny waves on the water, but then it lay still.

"Your turn," Nazumi said.

Noll knelt down beside her, rolled up his sleeves, and leaned out over the pond. The ball was at the end of his fingertips, and he had to be careful or he'd send it beyond his reach.

"Mr. Shibuya," Nazumi began thoughtfully.

It didn't matter what she was about to say, because Noll never found out. He turned around automatically in response to his alias, his fingers still resting lightly on the edge of the ball. The movement caused his hand to slip into the water below.

There was nothing wrong with the water. Nazumi's hands were already wet, and she sat quite contentedly by the edge of the pond. There was, however, something wrong with Noll. He could feel the water lapping over his fingers and melting into the veins at his wrist. The chill spread up his body, pulling his mind deep into the memory of the water. He tried to throw up his mental shield, – he was much too experienced to be pulled unintentionally in by anything less than his telepathic twin's death – but he could manage only a low wall that the water quickly sloshed over and drowned.

Noll called out for Lin. He hoped that it was out loud, but in all likelihood the sound never reached his lips, and his last thoughts as he was pulled under were not of his guardian and hopefully rescuer, but of Gene.

Not again.

* * *

**Chapter 26: Some Kind of Forever**

The moon hung low and large in the starlit sky, only a few clouds blocking the light as they drifted slowly by. The gentle, cool breeze was electrifying as it brushed over the water, disrupting the thick summer air. It was a night that people were meant to be out in, a night that was meant to be shared.

The newlywed Kimuras certainly thought so. They walked around the edge of the pond with not only their hands, but as much of their bodies as two separate souls could manage, intertwined. They curved together like the tails of seahorses dancing beneath the waves.

Kimura Amaya laughed suddenly and raced ahead, slipping free of her husband's arms. She twirled in the moonlight and her white skirt swirled around her. Kimura Ryuki playfully gave chase and caught her in his arms again, pulling her close.

"Love me," she said.

"Forever," he promised, kissing his way up her neck and to her lips. He could feel her smile against his mouth.

"Forever sounds nice," she replied. "Let's do forever together."

They kissed, and they walked on, leaving the pond alone under the light of the full moon.

It was a Saturday afternoon in autumn, and the pond reflected thin, golden rays of light. They were warm, but brittle in the chilled air, comforting, but for the lingering promise of winter to come.

The Kimuras sat together on a picnic blanket. Their plates were empty, and they sat comfortably on the grass with the peace of a relaxing meal.

"We should do this more often," Mr. Kimura said contentedly. He ran a hand through his ruthlessly tidy hair, so that it still said business professional but regained the hint of the artist that it had lost in the last couple of years.

"That would be nice, dear" Mrs. Kimura replied blandly, more changed by the passing years than her husband. She still wore bright American dresses and a smile, but she had gained a pointed subtlety that laced her housewife response.

Mr. Kimura detected the undertone immediately.

"I'm sorry I haven't been able to come home from the office much lately," he apologized without taking responsibility.

"Oh, I understand," she assured him, her tone blithe and her eyes anything but.

"Really," he insisted. "I would like to do this more often. Even when I start on the new contract next week, I should still be able to come home for lunch."

Mrs. Kimura finally smiled a true smile in reply. She leaned in and kissed her husband slowly, with only the faintest edge and longing to their embrace. He let himself believe, she let herself hope, and the radiant red leaves drifted down from the tree beside them into the pond.

Soft white buds grew on the tree beside the pond and a hopeful spring rain fell. Mrs. Kimura let the water wash over her, mostly immune to the ubiquitous damp because of a practical raincoat. The girlish dresses had been replaced by galoshes and a trowel, but she still smiled as she tended to her garden.

Where once there had been untended weeds, now pale, pink flowers poked through the fresh soil. Years and hard work had transformed the overgrown fairyland into an organized Japanese garden, too organized perhaps for her tastes, but the flowers were her greatest joy.

She cut a few. She would put them in a little vase for her husband, so that he could share in her garden while he worked. The flowers brought with them the sweet, wet air from the rain over the pond.

The air, even over the water of the pond, was the kind of dry that leached all internal moisture from any it touched.

Mrs. Kimura stood looking out over the pond alone. The picnics were a fading memory, remembered only in the underused smile lines at the corners of her lips, and the moonlit kisses were relegated to the abyss into which all forgotten follies of youth fall.

She did smile as she regarded her garden with the sense of possessiveness and pride only it could evoke. Within this place, this too structured, too subtle emblem of her culture, was her soul. She clipped one of her new, vibrant orange flowers with an efficient snip. The delicate, pale flower in her husband's vase was wilting. She'd replace it with the bolder one before he returned for the weekend.

As she walked inside, one of the flowers at the edge of the pond finally gave up and its weary petals fell into the water below.

Brown petals were replaced by brown leaves that coated the edges of the pond as autumn drew to a close. Mrs. Kimura walked about her garden with her coat pulled tightly around her, trying hard to pretend that the air wasn't filled with the chill of the oncoming winter. Soon, there would be no more flowers to leave in the lonely library. It didn't matter. Her husband was seldom able to come even for an entire weekend anymore. Mrs. Kimura wondered what would fill her days when the frost killed the last of the flowers and the pond froze over.

The pond thawed, bare trees became green canopies, and flowers bloomed again.

Mrs. Kimura had watched it all happen, had watched it all happen for years, and knew that it would continue to happen without her. The gardener she and her husband had hired the year before would see to that.

That was okay with her. She had poured her soul into the earth for the last seventeen years and in return she had received a single garden, perfectly tamed but for a few orange and yellow annuals that would die when the year was up. They were the only individuality that had been allowed in the home of the perfect Japanese housewife and the perfect Japanese businessmen, and their time was coming to a close. The Kimuras had climbed the social and monetary ladder until today, today when her husband would celebrate acquiring the most important contract to date since he became CEO (so impressive, at such a young age). It was time to let go.

The sun set and the full moon hung low and large in the starlit sky. A few soft clouds glided by, blown by the gentle breeze. They made up for what they cost in light with contribution towards the general ambience of the party below.

Mrs. Kimura stood beside her husband as he gave his speech. She thought how proud she was of him, of all of his dreams that had been fulfilled, and smiled out at the gathered guests she knew by job description rather than name.

Then, she walked alone out into the electrifying air. She left behind the artificial lights, artificial conversation, artificial laughter. She said her goodbyes to the heartless garden in which bright annuals no longer bloomed and looked out over the pond. The chill of the pond water seeped into her imported shoes, and she kept walking. The hemline of her gown floated for a few moments, before giving into the wet weight and sinking down, and still she kept walking.

There would be no more flowers in the library.

That should have been the end, but it wasn't. The despair that was once Kimura Amaya lingered in the flowers of her garden long after her widowed husband moved away. It was no longer quite a person, but it remained and it despaired.

Once, she had stood under the full moon with her husband and he had told her forever. Once, twice, for eleven years she had stood alone by the pond and wondered what kind of forever ended like this. A new forever twisted before her and she walked along it, twisting as well. What kind of man can promise to love forever? A liar.

One day, a van pulled up to the rebuilt former home of the Kimura's and two children spilled out of its doors.

"This is perfect, Nazumi!" the boy called to his more hesitant sister. "Look at this yard!"

The presence in the garden had never had children and had no interest. It rested dormant as the children picked the soulless flowers and splashed water at each other in the shallows of the pond.

Then, a man and a woman exited as well.

"This could be nice," the man said, with a pleading smile at his wife. "It would have been nice to stay closer to our family and friends, but since we did have to leave for the job, this is nice. Right?"

"Lovely, dear," the woman replied with a tight smile. At least the garden was nice, she thought. She could be happy in that garden. She would try to be happy.

The presence stirred slightly.

The newcomers went about the important business of day-to-day life, and one day, when the man was at work, the woman came into the garden and planted bright annuals to make her mark on the traditional garden.

The presence began to reform into the new consciousness of Kimura Amaya. It fed on the newcomer's love, her loneliness and her doubt. It grew closer to the woman, until their similar memories blended in the newly formed spirit.

That night, there was an argument in the house and the woman fled outside. Her tears fell into the earth beside the pond, and the pond's resident spirit fell into her. It possessed her just for a moment this time, just long enough to see another love failing.

The moment would be longer next time, and it would be longer still each successive time. The ghost of Kimura Amaya became the chill haunting the Watanabes, her resolve clear as she listened to her husband's spirit trapped in the library, pleading with her to reconsider. There could be no reconsidering. Every man who loved lied; every liar must be punished.

There would be no more flowers in the haunted library.

* * *

**Chapter 27: Drowning in the Sky**

Noll watched with some interest as two thin, blue crescents appeared and then were swallowed once again by darkness. He tried to focus on the color weaving in and out of existence, but he couldn't quite control his eyes. Eyes . . . That's right, he realized. He was Oliver Davis not a semi-formed spirit haunting a pond across decades and he had eyelids.

He opened his eyes and stared uneasily into the now expansive blue. It was unlike anything he had ever seen before, breathing in and out in time with a slow beat in his head. The sound sped up, and with it, the blue began to move faster and faster until it barely moved at all. If the blue had truly been breathing, it would have been hyperventilating.

Noll panicked. He couldn't drown, not again. He tried to thrash around and be noticed, to fight the expanse of blue, but his limbs were too far away to respond. He couldn't even feel them.

The pulsing became clearer and Noll identified it for what it was: his heartbeat pounding relentlessly in his head.

His head really hurt. With that realization came others, sensations slowly returning. He was lying on something hard and bumpy, and though he could feel warm sunlight on his face, he felt chilled, that odd, feverish temperature somewhere between frozen and lost in a haze of heat.

He blinked. Why was his arm so cold?

"Mr. Shibuya?" a small, uncertain voice asked. Nazumi.

"Yes?" he tried to answer, though he feared it came out as more of an indistinct groan.

"Right. Okay," Nazumi's voice replied from somewhere outside of Noll's field of vision. "I'm going to go get Mr. Lin."

"Wait," Noll said, managing to shape words clearly again. "I don't need Lin. I – what are you doing?"

Noll had shifted his head to converse with Nazumi and found that she was standing over him with a hose. She blushed.

"I . . . well, I saw Mr. Lin take away that book last night and then you woke up, so I thought I could . . ."

"Take away the water," Noll suggested, impressed despite himself with her ingenuity. "It was certainly effective. Good thinking."

Nazumi smiled happily and Noll thought that Lin had been forgotten, but then she paused. Noll sighed internally. While he wished that he could stand up in an impressive display of how fine he was, he decided against it. He had managed to steady his breathing and calm his racing heart. That didn't mean that he'd be able to stand up for more than a few seconds yet. Standing up only to collapse and scare Nazumi again would be counterproductive.

He settled for sitting up, a wisely limited choice since it caused the trees to sway dizzily in front of him.

Nazumi took this as a sign that he was ready to continue their conversation.

"Do you have some sort of psychic power?" she blurted out.

Noll considered flopping back down on the grass again. He wondered what exactly would have to be wrong with him to make any of this happen without psychometry. He didn't ask, because that would be rude, and he needed Nazumi. For that reason, his favorite evasive response, "I'll leave that up to your imagination," was also out. The only way around a conversation with Lin that he could see was to take Nazumi into his confidence and gain her trust.

"Yes," he said. "It's called psychometry. I can learn information about people through their personal possessions or places they were close too."

"Oh," she said. "Is that why you investigate ghosts? Because you can use your power to find out about them?"

"I seldom have to resort to that," Noll said confidently, relieved that the trees were finally staying rooted to the ground. "I can almost always solve the case with the use of conventional, documentable methods."

The obvious question remaining was, "So what went wrong this time?" but Nazumi was too young for it to occur to her.

Instead, she asked, "Does Mr. Lin know you have . . . psychometry?" She rolled the unfamiliar word around on her tongue.

"Yes," Noll replied shortly, "though I'd appreciate if you didn't mention this incident to him."

Nazumi hesitated, gazing imploringly at Noll. She really wanted to keep her hero's secret if that was what he wanted, but she didn't want him to want her to.

"I think I have to," she said eventually. "Mother always says that it's good to keep people's secrets unless the secret is going to end up hurting someone, and I think yours is. It would be different if you were staying, - you'd have Gen and me to watch out for you – but you'll be gone as soon as you finish with the case.

"It's just that I could have hurt someone with PK if you hadn't known what was going on, and everything's a lot less scary now that Gen is there when I can't calm down. I think you need someone like that, who knows what's happening when you've gone too far. I don't want you to get hurt, because you don't have your own version of Gen, so yes, I am going to tell Lin. I'm sorry."

Nazumi ran off, leaving Noll alone. He lay back on the grass and cursed the nine-year-old's morality. He never asked her to care.

* * *

**Chapter 28: The Destruction of the Lonely Housewife**

As anticipated, Lin was furious, but he managed to conceal it quite well thanks to the presence of the nine-year-old. Noll was granted a slight reprieve.

"What were you thinking?" Lin asked softly, anger present only in the undercurrent.

He tried to help Noll sit up, but the boy shrugged him off. Noll had already done the whole sitting up thing without help, thank you, and he didn't want to be touched. He didn't need his own Gen, and he didn't think his heart would survive another Gene. Lin would never be able to fill his twin's place.

"Everyone's always telling me to be kinder, and now when I help a child get her ball out of the pond, you chastise me. I'm confused about the lesson you're trying to teach me. Do you even know?" Noll said waspishly.

Lin took a deep, tired breath. Whatever was wrong with his charge had little to do with his powers, apparently. After getting sucked too deeply into a vision for the second time in as many days, Noll should have been dazed and pliant at least for the next couple of hours. Lin had anticipated having to retire to the hotel early, since it would be hard to explain why his "boss" was allowing himself to be guided to his room in complete silence, seemingly unaware of anyone.

Instead, Noll was irritable and being difficult on purpose, so something had to have set him off. Lin just gave in and let the boy win, at least verbally. Noll would snap out of it eventually once he'd worked through whatever was bothering him.

Lin watched with minimal concern and exasperation as Noll stalked off alone towards the entrance to the Watanabe house. He wished Mrs. Watanabe was still out working in her garden so he could give her some warning or excuse, but she wasn't, so Noll would reach the house and its occupants first. Hopefully, seeing her would reset Noll to his dealing with client settings.

Suddenly, Noll stopped, eyeing the freshly weeded patch of flowers suspiciously.

"Lin," he called, the full importance of the vision he had just had hitting him. Lin jogged to catch up, leaving Nazumi trailing behind.

"Yes," Lin said.

"Are you prepared to exorcise Kimura Amaya?" Noll asked.

Lin's eyes narrowed in thoughtful surprise.

"Yes, of course," he said. "I prepared the ritual as a precaution when you confirmed her as one of the most likely candidates for the identity of the ghost."

"Good," Noll replied.

The two ghost hunters, and Nazumi who had finally caught up, flinched as someone inside the house started yelling. Lin turned to run inside, but Noll shook his head and placed a restraining hand on Nazumi's shoulder.

"Go get anything you need," Noll ordered. "And take Nazumi."

"Kazuya," Lin said warningly.

"I have something else to do first," Noll replied flatly. "You're wasting time."

He watched as his companions raced off to the SPR van before entering the Watanabe house.

The first thing he noticed was that it was cold, not terribly so, but just a few degrees lower than he would have expected.

"You can't keep up this supernatural delusion!" Mr. Watanabe shouted and the lights flickered. A slight thump came from the direction of the library.

"I'm going back to the garden," Mrs. Watanabe said coldly. She turned to leave, but her husband blocked her path.

"Please," he said. "All you seem to care about anymore is that damn garden. I know I've been busy at the office, and I know you didn't want to move –"

"All you seem to care about anymore is your damn job," she replied, the lights flickering again. "Were you lying when you said you'd love me forever?"

"What?" Mr. Watanabe asked, startled and flustered.

"Were you lying," she said, leaning forward with a slither, the suppleness of a snake, "when you kissed me in the moonlight? Were you lying when you said you loved me? Did you lie about forever? You said you would come home more and then you stayed away for years. You weren't even there when I left you flowers."

"What?" Mr. Watanabe said again, completely baffled this time.

The temperature dropped another degree and the floorboards moaned. It was time for Noll to intervene, to give Kimura Amaya a chance.

"Mrs. Kimura," he said. "This man is not your husband."

The spirit inside Mrs. Watanabe's body rounded on him, staring with wide, flat eyes.

"He's not your husband," Noll repeated firmly. "This is Mr. Watanabe, whose wife you've possessed. They just moved here with their two children."

"He could be my husband," the ghost of Mrs. Kimura replied bitterly. "She could be me. That's what you can't understand, child. All the lonely lovers, all of the abandoned spouses, the wives whose husbands gave their hearts only to work, they could be me. It doesn't matter that this is a different woman living a different story, because all love stories end the same way. They all deserve to end."

"You're stuck here, Mrs. Kimura," Noll challenged. "You were lonely in life, with your husband always shutting himself off from you. Now in death as in life, his soul is trapped in the library and yours is trapped in the garden. You don't have to forgive. You just have to let go. Let yourself be something more than a woman a man forgot. Let yourself be free."

It wasn't working. Noll could see the predatory gleam in her eyes, the same despair turned to desperation turned to hate that he had felt in the pond. If Noll had been a medium, perhaps he could have filled his spirit with light and used it to alleviate the ghost's darkness, but his medium was dead. His own spirit was bound in the dark depths of the lake alongside his brother's. He couldn't cleanse Mrs. Kimura's spirit, so he had to let Lin destroy it.

"Why bother with freedom in a world where love is a lie?" Mrs. Kimura asked. "I don't want freedom. I want all the liars exposed. I want the world to see them, and then I want to watch their hearts bleed."

Noll really wanted that to be a metaphor, but from the way the lights flickered faster and the temperature crept slowly downwards, he suspected it was literal.

"Where's Nazumi?" Noll asked Lin as the onmyouji came inside.

"I left her by the van with Gen," he replied, quickly scanning the room. He was surprised to see that Mrs. Watanabe was possessed, but relieved to see that Noll was unharmed. He'd feared that Noll's secretive attempt at a cleansing would have worse results than simple failure.

"Then proceed," Noll said.

He didn't look at Lin as the older man began chanting softly, exorcising the spirit. He'd seen it before. Lin knelt calmly on the floor, a lit candle, a smoldering stick of incense, and an incantation with the spirit's identity and date of death making up the tools of the emergency exorcism. Soon, he would stop chanting, incantation complete, and take a deep breath. The candle would flicker, and the exorcism would proceed as a silent contest of wills until finally Lin would win and the spirit would dissipate, gone from existence. Noll didn't need to see it again to know it was happening.

Instead, Noll kept his eyes fixed on Mrs. Watanabe and the ghost that inhabited her. If anyone were to ask, Noll would have said that he watched to make sure the spirit wasn't going to become violent. This was a lie. He watched, because he owed it to the woman whose spirit he condemned to destruction. On the rare case when even Gene couldn't cleanse the spirit, the twins always stood hand in hand, wearily, bitterly watching. It was such a waste.

When the exorcism was almost complete and the air eerily still from the ritual, Mrs. Watanabe collapsed into her husband's ready arms. The intruding spirit rushed from her body and charged towards the ghost hunters. Still, Noll stood and watched. The lights went out, but he stood safely behind Lin's wall of shiki as the exorcism was completed.

With a final cry, Kimura Amaya was gone, and the house was still.

"The other spirit?" Lin asked. "Mrs. Kimura's spirit trapped it here?"

Noll nodded.

"Mr. Kimura will cross over on his own now that she has," he said. "It's over."

* * *

**Chapter 29: The End for Now**

"You're leaving," Nazumi said resignedly as Noll and Lin loaded the last of the equipment into the van.

"Yes," Noll said simply.

"Will you ever come back?" Gen asked wistfully. "I mean, it was scary, but it was also kind of exciting."

"I shouldn't think so," Noll replied, shutting the back of the van with a short click. "Nazumi has what she needs to learn to control her powers and the ghosts are gone. My job is done."

"What if there are more ghosts?" Gen asked excitedly. "You'd have to come back, and maybe we could help next time. Nazumi and I could be ghost hunters too!"

Noll just stared at the boy as he rambled his way into fantasy lands and feats of impossible heroism.

"Goodbye, Gen," he said flatly.

Gen's face fell, his dream world temporarily shattered. That was okay. By the time the SPR van hit the highway, Noll's lackluster farewell would be forgotten and only imagined battles with fearsome spirits would linger on. The younger boy shook the ghost hunters' hands with enthusiasm and went back inside.

"Goodbye, Mr. Shibuya. Goodbye, Mr. Lin," he called as he left.

"This is it, then," Nazumi said, standing forlornly beside the passenger side door. "You're just going to go off and solve other cases. You succeed and you leave."

"Probably," Noll admitted easily.

In the privacy of his own mind, however, he was not as comfortable deeming the Watanabe case a success. He'd come up with the possible identities of the ghosts himself, but the confirmation had been through psychometry and destroying spirits was only a last resort. He wasn't sure he'd take any other cases if this was the best he could do without his twin. He'd kept his promise to Madoka, and it was time to return to the search for Gene.

Nazumi seemed to sense his internal melancholy. She looked up at the investigator in black.

"I know you're a professional and this is what you do," she said, "but I also know that I was scared and you made the spirits go away. Even if it's nothing out of the ordinary to you, you saved me. Thank you."

She hugged him tightly, then stepped back, smiling.

"Goodbye, Nazumi," he said, giving her the best smile he could manage. It didn't reach his eyes, but it wasn't the smile intended to charm or his smug smirk. It was a little hollow, but genuine.

"Goodbye, Mr. Shibuya," she said.

She stood at the end of the driveway as Lin started the van, and the two members of SPR drove away.

"The girl posed an interesting question," Lin began, after a few moments of quiet. "Will you take another case?"

Noll considered the question. He saw Gene calmly facing down a spirit, an overwhelming aura of peace surrounding them both. He heard Lin's quiet chanting and heard the final cry of Mrs. Kimura's spirit after he ordered her destruction. He felt the heartfelt gratitude in Nazumi's "thank you".

"I think so," he said at last. "SPR is still my cover for why I'm in Japan, and it only makes sense to take some cases, since I can't travel all of the time. This is it for now, though. There have been enough delays. It's time to find my brother."

* * *

_**A/N:** Case closed! I'm especially proud of "Some Kind of Forever", because I so lacked the life experience needed to write it and I think it turned out anyway. Now I need to figure out what to do with Mai . . ._

_**Next time:** The case at Mai's school! To be honest, I haven't written a word of it, but still, Mai!_


	7. To Believe in Ghosts - Day 1

**Section 7: To Believe in Ghosts – Day 1**

_**Author's Note:** So. . . I messed up the timing of the story, because, as I'm sure I've mentioned, I know absolutely nothing about Japan. It turns out Japanese schools start in April. I had Gene die during early summer, and then I kept describing the weather and made it a motif, so I can't easily have Mai and Naru meet in the spring like they're supposed to. Oops. I'll be back on the regular timeline for the creepy doll case. Sorry for my unintentional deviation from canon._

_**Update Note:** I learned that taking 90 minute calculus tests every day fries my concentration. Only I am surprised by this. That and life (stupid life) are why this update was later than I'd anticipated, and as much as I'd love to write more, I may not manage another update before school starts. I'll try! I've written some random scenes that happen later in the story (including two with Noll and Madoka that I'm quite fond of) that I would really like to share, so I'm quite determined to write my way there. Updates will probably become really infrequent, but I'll do my best._

_**Disclaimer:** I don't own Ghost Hunt. If I did, I would make Mai shriek less. It's not that I dislike Mai – she's great – I just prefer her at a slightly lower pitch and volume. I also don't own any of the dialogue that I took from a mixture of the show and the manga. I did just randomly pick the name of Mai's principal and school. If either actually has a name, tell me and I'll fix it._

* * *

**Chapter 30: Hormones and Traffic Markings**

_Brrring!_

The oppressive silence filling the SPR van was broken by the chiming ring of Lin's cell phone. Lin wasn't thrilled with the cheerful sound, but it was the only ringtone he had found that he could always hear over whatever else was happening. That high-pitched, upbeat horror that Madoka had programmed into his phone for a while didn't count.

_Brrring!_

"Either answer the phone or turn off that infernal sound," Noll said huffily from the passenger seat, not bothering to open his eyes.

Honestly, Noll's voice startled Lin more than his phone had. After the boy had put down his book and resorted to staring fixedly out the window, Lin thought he had finally fallen asleep. Evidently not.

"I'm driving," Lin said flatly, refraining from pointing out that fumbling with his phone increased the likelihood of a car accident. A few more weeks had passed, but it was still too soon for that.

"I'm sleeping," Noll retorted.

"I can hear that," Lin found himself blurting out childishly. He was a decade older than Noll and should have been above petty bickering, but after weeks spent almost constantly in the boy's increasingly sullen and hopeless company, he found himself regressing.

Noll exhaled in annoyed disdain and refused to reply.

_Brrring!_

Having had the sound brought so crossly to his attention, Lin was beginning to find it a bit grating as well. He resigned himself to a conversation with someone he didn't want to talk to, confident that whoever was calling, he'd rather not converse just then.

As Lin checked the Caller ID, he was struck with evil inspiration. He answered the phone quickly, pressed a few buttons, and then tossed it at Noll. As expected, the boy caught it out of pure reflex before realizing what was happening.

"I'd advise saying hello," Lin said blandly, as if he hadn't just thrown a phone at his charge. "It's Madoka."

Noll turned slowly away for the window, smiling his first (slightly malevolent) smile after over a week of chilled detachment.

"It's your phone," he said smugly. "If I just hang up, she'll think it was you."

"Noll!" a bright voice rang out from the phone. "Is that any way to greet your mentor?"

Noll shut his eyes in defeat.

"You put it on speaker," he said tiredly, with just a hint of admiration. He was seldom outplayed, so he did appreciate the skill behind it, even though he was past caring.

"Hello, Madoka," Lin called, trying his best not to copy Noll's once habitual smirk.

"Koujo!" she said cheerfully. Then, "Noll's ignoring me."

"He's been doing that lately," Lin replied lightly, hoping that Madoka would take the hint and somehow help him cheer up the morose boy, if only temporarily.

"I've heard a lot of teenage boys go through that phase," she answered sagely.

Lin had an image of dual Madokas in his mind, one nodding solemnly as if imparting great wisdom, the other rubbing her hands together gleefully like a cartoon villain about to implement an evil scheme. Bickering seemed to be pulling Noll out of the funk he'd been sliding deeper and deeper into, so Lin was content to go along with whatever Madoka was planning. As much as Madoka was known for her mischief at the best of times, at the worst, she would always look out for Noll.

"It's another one of the mysteries that can be attributed to puberty," Madoka continued, straining her ears to find out if Noll was already grinding his teeth on the other end of the line. "Probably something to do with hormones. One moment, they're just sweet little boys, all dimples and respect for their elders, and when you look back, they're moody, angst-ridden –"

"Did you have a particular reason for calling?" Noll asked peevishly.

Madoka punched a fist in the air in success. She had thought that she would have to mention hormones at least two or three more times before her unflappable protégé would take the bait. Apparently, she'd underestimated the lasting trauma from the Davis' most recent attempt to do their parental duty. Madoka had been treated to the full story by the still-gloating Gene.

The first time the Davis boys were given The Talk, Gene was still reeling from the realization that girls were kind of pretty, and Noll, who remained as unimpressed by girls as he was by all idiots of the human species, took full advantage of it. He was convinced that he would never meet a girl he could love, and before he was done with the discussion, he'd make sure Gene didn't want to. Noll had pelted his adoptive parents with increasingly embarrassing questions that had been answered by Martin in oblivious candor and Luella with warm honesty. Noll silently ignored their responses. He was far too amused watching his brother's face turn a variety of impressive shades of red.

The second time only happened, because Luella felt that the first time had been too clinical (unsurprisingly since it had been largely driven by Noll). This time, the talk focused on changing emotions, and Noll was the hopelessly awkward twin. Gene had cheerfully taken his revenge by prodding Noll to discuss his feelings at length.

Now, the discussion was a tool for Madoka to force Noll to change the subject, thereby entering conversation. Mission accomplished.

"Just checking in," she said. "Your parents say hi, by the way."

"Do they now?" Noll asked cynically.

"Well, not exactly," Madoka admitted. "They also told me to tell you that they're worried about you, especially since you've stopped answering any calls, and that you can always come home."

"Not until I find Gene," Noll said flatly.

"I know," Madoka soothed. "That's what I told them, and they aren't going to force you to return until you're ready."

"If that's all?" Noll was ready to hang up and return to the riveting hobby of watching lane lines zip hypnotically by. He had almost managed complete numbness, before the ringing telephone sent all of his painful thoughts zinging back into his head.

"Not quite," Madoka said. "I needed to pass on your parents' message, but I mostly wanted to see how you two were doing and if you'd made any progress."

"I see," Noll said emotionlessly. The van was in a passing zone, but to Noll's eyes, the dashed lane lines outside the window blurred until they formed one long path, marking where the van had been and would soon go. It was the past and future on pavement, but Noll could only see what was next to him right at that moment. It bored him into sweet oblivion.

"We've eliminated several possibilities," Lin chimed in, glancing worriedly at Noll and repeating the answer he had been given when he'd asked the boy a similar question earlier that day.

Madoka was no more reassured than Lin had been when it had been Noll delivering the answer. It was strictly accurate and phrased to sound hopeful, but she was confident that it didn't reflect the teen's state of mind at all.

"That's a great start," she replied, infusing her voice with warmth. She hoped that some of it reached into the sunless depths that had consumed her protégé.

"So are you headed back to your new headquarters?" she continued.

Again, it was Lin who answered.

"Yes. We've checked out a handful of the places on Noll's list, so we're going to take some time to regroup before the next expedition."

"That makes sense," Madoka affirmed, certain that the break was for Noll's sake though not of his design. "Well, you two must be tired after all that traveling, so I'll let you go back to sitting silently and ignoring each other. Take care."

As quickly as she had come, Madoka was gone and the heavy silence returned. All the while, the seemingly eternal yellow lines flew by.

* * *

**Chapter 31: Anything but That**

"We don't have to stay at the office," Lin hinted blandly for the third time since arriving at the headquarters of the new SPR a few hours earlier.

"If you can't be bothered to work, you're always welcome to leave," Noll replied. His equally expressionless voice was completely counteracted by his dark scowl, not that Lin could see it through the partially closed door.

Noll knew that the mild suggestions about getting some rest or taking some time to relax that Lin had forced him to endure were justified expressions of concern. That didn't make them any less annoying. Even more annoying were the quiet assertions that there was, in fact, no work to do, since the office was merely a cover. The worst part was that Lin was right.

Noll was sitting alone in his office persistently, uselessly staring at a map. It was the same map that he had bought in the Japanese airport, unchanged but for a few Xs where he had failed to find his twin. Noll knew that he was being obsessive, not productive; he just didn't appreciate having Lin draw attention to it.

As if hearing and ignoring Noll's thoughts, Lin continued, "We might as well see some of Tokyo while we're here, since you've never been to Japan. Madoka says Yoyogi Park's nice."

That suggestion was shocking enough that Noll exited his office to stare disbelievingly at his "assistant" in person.

"You want to sightsee?" he asked, disgusted.

Lin sighed internally, maintaining a false air of sincerity for his boss's benefit. Of course he didn't want to go sightseeing. While Noll and the Professor had to be bullied into going outside or doing anything remotely recreational, they also went whenever Gene and Luella called. Meanwhile, Lin always stayed at the office. Someone had to work, and he was more than happy to volunteer.

While he had no interest in Yoyogi Park, he was willing to play tourist to stop Noll from sitting alone in a sparsely decorated fake office with the shades drawn. The scene was like something out of a bad drama. Any second, Noll would start a soliloquy on the cruelty of fate, society, or whatever else the playwright felt like giving meaningful commentary on. An unwelcome dose of sunshine was preferable to that.

Unfortunately, Lin couldn't think of a single Noll-worthy reason to go along with Madoka's orders of sun and sleep. Unless he could find a way to make the park seem haunted . . .

The ringing of the office phone saved Lin from the embarrassment of having to argue in favor of playing tourist. He reached for it, expecting Noll to be above so menial a task as speaking to a potential client over the telephone. To his surprise, Noll snatched the phone away before he could answer it.

"Shibuya Psychic Research," the boy said.

"This is Yamada Kenshin. I'm the principal at Kanto High School," a smooth male voice said. "We've been having a problem with a haunting, and it's getting in the way of the demolition of an old building."

"What kind of problem?" Noll asked. "Why do you think spirits are responsible?"

It didn't matter, really, because Noll was desperate enough to take the case sight unseen, but he had to pretend to do his job.

"There are just too many incidents to pass off as coincidence. I'm sure with all of your experience in the field, you've seen it happen before," Yamada replied, oozing charm.

Noll was bored by charm, his own and that of others. He'd had enough experience in the land of sponsors and academia to know that prestige was possessed by idiots and jerks as often as people who truly deserved recognition. He himself was the perfect example. He was one of the youngest, brightest members of the parapsychology community and had made numerous contributions to the field, yet he was renowned for his looks and the PK demonstration he once did. Everyone tended to ignore what he had actually accomplished.

The principal continued, "Of course, I didn't believe the rumors about the place at first. I would never have allowed the demolition to start again if I had."

"Why did it stop before?" Noll interrupted softly.

"Well, a number of reasons," the principal answered. "The only constant was that in each case, incidents continued until someone was hurt and demolition stopped. We've always had an unusual number of strange accidents in the building, and people died almost every year it was in use. It was finally shut down, deemed unsafe, but part of the roof fell in during construction. The workers barely escaped with their lives.

"Demolition was discontinued for a time, but with rising populations, the school's capacity to hold the necessary number of students was strained, and it began again. This time, there were several injuries, but thankfully no one died.

"Since then, there has been a suicide in the building; one of our teachers joined the spirits that haunt the place. A child's body was also found, a young girl from the neighborhood, and in the most recent demolition attempt, one of the construction trucks veered suddenly off the road without warning and into the volleyball courts where a gym class was in session. We lost two students and more were injured.

"That was the last time demolition was put on hold, and that was when the rumors really started. The students speak of pale figures with sightless glowing eyes peering out at them from the empty windows when they leave school at dusk. They tell stories about the spirits that haunt the place.

"Of course, I've been at this school for a long time. I know about the endless imagination and exaggeration of students, but the legends have grown so ubiquitous that no one wants to get close enough to the building to tear it down. Even without the need for more space, the building must go. It's beginning to affect the school's reputation. I ask your esteemed office to please help us."

Noll strongly suspected that he could help, but that anyone else could do the same with a little more time. The number of deaths was alarming, not indicative of spirits. Noll heard nothing to convince him that there were actually spirits present. He was also unimpressed by the school's need to expand and maintain its reputation, especially when compared to the death toll. He had nothing but contempt for the demonstrated level of superstition and arrogance. Nevertheless, he wasn't going to spend the day awkwardly strolling around a park with Lin, and that was well worth the lesser waste of time of a false case.

He needed something to fill the time if he wasn't going to be permitted to continue his search immediately.

"Very well," Noll said. "We'll take the case. My assistant and I can be there in an hour to conduct our preliminary investigation."

He hung up with a satisfied, efficient click.

* * *

**Chapter 32: The Principal's Office**

"Good afternoon," Noll said politely to the secretary, a petite woman with a perpetually suspicious expression. "I'm here to see the principal. I'm the president of –"

"Your club can wait," the secretary interrupted firmly. "Principal Yamada is in a meeting. You can sit in the waiting room until he is finished or schedule an appointment."

With that, she stood up and retreated to the back room to do whatever unhelpful office staff members do when they aren't present to be unhelpful. She didn't even have the decency to be one of the pleasant but ultimately useless office aids often found in such establishments.

Noll was left standing in front of her desk, nonplussed and annoyed.

"It appears this case is going to be even more of a waste of time than I had anticipated," he told Lin pointedly, as if he wasn't responsible for accepting the case. "We could be at Lake Kasumigaura before dusk."

Noll was technically correct, but Lin didn't want to be responsible for what was already beginning to happen to the boy after less than two weeks of relentless failure.

The onmyouji ignored his "boss" eloquently, leaving Noll to lean against a wall of the waiting area in a huff. He refused to sit in the hard-backed benches reserved for honor students in need of congratulating and problem students in need of an understanding yet patronizing lecture to set them on the right path.

Noll had flown through grades too quickly to have much experience with traditional schooling, but in that short time, he managed to be both types of students. He and Gene were both honor roll students and top of their class, but they also had the bad habit of trading places whenever one of them had to do something unpleasant. Besides, Gene was mischievous and Noll's vast number of issues, especially early on, included authority figures. They had both spent plenty of time waiting on uncomfortable benches. It was understandable that Noll wasn't nostalgic about the experience.

It didn't take long for him to lose patience with being treated like a child.

"Go knock," Noll ordered.

Lin looked down at him, considering ignoring the demand, but concluding that he'd rather be rude than stuck in a high school.

"Mr. Yamada. Shibuya Psychic Research here to discuss the haunting you reported," Lin said, knocking with respectful determination.

Noll breezed in without waiting for a reply. He was certain that the principal was supposed to be in a meeting, but since the meeting was with him, he was relatively confident that it hadn't started yet.

"Principal Yamada, it's a pleasure to meet you in person," Noll said, turning on his best authoritative charm. "I'm Shibuya Kazuya, president of Shibuya Psychic Research, and this is my assistant, Lin."

"You're the president?" the principal asked, dumbfounded.

Noll narrowed his eyes sourly at the man behind the large, mahogany desk. The principal was almost an average man, just a hair on the short side of average height and on the large side of plump. His sharp suit made no allowances for reality, compressing his bulk into a proud, upright form. His hair was graying and formally cut, but with a slight curl over one eyebrow that left Noll with the impression of an aging lady's man. Nevertheless, faults aside, there was a spark in his eyes that spoke of genuine compassion beyond the concern for ego. Noll wasn't ready to leave just out of spite yet.

Besides, he still wanted the relief of distraction.

"Yes," he said simply.

"How old are you?" the principal demanded.

"Old enough to do my job," Noll answered, opening his black notebook with a sharp flick. "Now that we've made our introductions, I'm sure, busy man that you are, you'd like to get down to business."

"Oh . . . Yes, of course," the principal replied, still looking mistrustfully at Noll.

"Well, then, let's begin," Noll said.

"Finally," Noll concluded a few minutes later, "we need permission to set up cameras in the old building. Since it's off-limits, it shouldn't be a violation of privacy for the students, and you won't have to worry them speculating about what we're doing and causing panic," Noll added, seeing that the principal was about to protest.

"Of course. Yes. Do that," he answered, having been completely steamrollered by the ghost hunter's retorts to his unspoken objections.

"Excellent," Noll said, standing up abruptly before the principal could express any more doubt about Noll's qualifications as an investigator due to his age. "We'll begin at once."

* * *

**Chapter 33: Age and Ghost Stories**

"And what will you be doing?" Lin asked suspiciously.

He knew Noll hated setting up the cameras, but this was the first time he had ever instructed the onmyouji to do so alone. While Lin would ordinarily assume the boy had a lead and let him follow it, it was too early in the case for that, and Noll hadn't been acting like himself, since Gene's death really, but especially since the fourth wrong lake. Lin wasn't sure he could be trusted wandering off alone.

"I thought you were here to monitor my powers for the BSPR and my parents, not babysit," Noll retorted, his voice mild. "If you insist on unnecessary worry, I suppose I might as well answer. I'm going to question the students. Apparently, they're telling stories about what they think is happening in the allegedly haunted building. We should know what they're saying."

"And this means you can't set up cameras," Lin replied as if it was a statement rather than a question.

"Of course, for the sake of efficiency. This case is a waste of time, but we can minimize the amount of time wasted. You set up the cameras, because I'm better suited to the task of questioning students."

"Naturally," Lin said solemnly. "The principal insisted on discretion and you can easily blend in with a group of high school students, while I am too obviously an adult."

Noll scowled at the older man, who admittedly looked like the twenty-six year old that he was while Noll was visibly a teenager. He had noticed the principal's fixation with his youth as well, but rubbing it in was uncalled for. Noll was beginning to question whether his constant needling of Lin had been wise. Unfortunately, it was great stress relief, so he wasn't going to stop any time soon.

"I'm glad you understand my reasoning," he replied, his voice equally serious. "I wouldn't want you to be insulted that I considered you too old to be of any use investigating, when it is simply a statement of fact."

Noll tried to make a hasty exit, but unlike the principal, Lin was used to his tactics.

"Call if you need anything," Lin told his retreating back.

Though the onmyouji was hesitant to let Noll out of his sight (despite how truly thankful he was to have some time away from the boy), on the whole, he was content with the arrangement. When Lin had expressed his concerns about the boy's well-being to Madoka, she had suggested a break and fresh air. As anticipated, that was beyond Lin's persuasive abilities. However, Noll was going to talk to people instead of hiding out in his office or the haunted building. That, Lin decided, could be considered a success.

Noll, meanwhile, was hiding with his body pressed against the wall just to the side of a protruding doorway. It wasn't the most mature decision he had ever made. The secrecy was hardly out of necessity, but was instead a childish attempt to avoid supervision. He just wanted a few minutes when Lin didn't know his exact location. He waited until the sound of the onmyouji's footsteps had faded into silence before continuing down the hall.

His own echoing footsteps were the most constant noise, but occasionally others' footsteps or bright voices would overwhelm the quiet sounds of walking before disappearing again. Even after school hours, there were still people at the high school.

Noll had never liked school hallways. School itself had some redeeming characteristics – the books, the learning, a few of the professors and students, (the constant presence of his brother) – but he reserved a special loathing for the hallways. They were where other students stood around in oblivious, inconvenient clumps, talking happily with their friends. They were where couples covertly made out in darkened corners or blatantly intertwined hands as they walked along. They were where students forgot school for a moment in the company of their peers (Gene always smiling, always accompanied on his way class) and Noll walked alone. Besides, hallways were loud and had that distinctive, unpleasant school smell. There was nothing to like.

There were also currently no students who seemed remotely willing to share their local legends, Noll noted in annoyance. He needed young, imaginative, and under-involved at school, but everyone he saw seemed to be racing off to someplace important.

Their version of important. It wasn't strictly true that if it wasn't related to parapsychology, Noll didn't care, but it was close enough to the truth. He'd never been able to understand the usual extracurricular pursuits. Sure, he could kick a ball and he could probably play an instrument passably with some work, but why bother?

Intellectually, he knew the answer was that people did these activities because they made them happy. He supposed the same could be said about his own study of parapsychology, though happy didn't feel like quite the right emotion. It made him curious, it made him think and feel clever, feel useful, and it made the unforgivable boredom retreat. It made him feel alive. He still felt like that studying ghosts, even without Gene. That was why "happy" couldn't possibly be the word for what he felt.

He didn't feel especially alive at the moment, leaning against the wall beside a classroom with his arms determinedly crossed and watching students bustle past without ever glancing in his direction. He could be invisible, if that wasn't completely ridiculous. Noll glared sourly at the opposite wall, blaming the hallway for the lack of interesting students to interrogate. When in doubt, blame inanimate objects.

As he glowered at the wall across from him, he became aware of the sounds in the darkened classroom behind him. There were girls whispering.

He hoped for a moment that the whispers were from the spirits of girls rather than the living articles, but given the dubious nature of the supposed haunting, he was unlikely to be that lucky. Still, he was on a reconnaissance mission, and the tone of the room fit the telling of ghost stories. He walked softly do the door and pressed an ear to it.

He really hoped the girls were telling ghost stories, both because the stories were what he was hoping to find and because it was going to be embarrassing if they were playing truth or dare. From the few games he'd walked in on, he knew that there were things he didn't want to see or know.

". . . told her to go inside and wait to hear the voice again, and she did just as she was told," a girl's voice whispered, her usual pitch dramatically lowered to enhance the creepiness. "After a few moments, she heard a voice asking her 'Do you want me to cover you with a red coat?'"

Noll's initial reaction was resigned annoyance. They were telling ghost stories, but not about the building, so he'd have to question them later. Ordinarily, this was when he'd find something else to do while he waited for the girls to finish, and then find a way to question them. It made sense.

For some reason, it wasn't what he wanted though. There was something in the girl's slightly melodramatic voice, something that he couldn't quite define, but couldn't walk away from. She spoke with a sort of hope, or maybe it was just the thrill of the story playing out on the screen of her imagination. Whatever it was, Noll found himself leaning into the door, listening to the story. It was one he hadn't heard before.

"She answered, 'yes,' and then, a loud scream shattered the midnight silence," the girl continued, reveling in the horror. "The policeman burst through the door and found . . . the woman dead, totally covered in blood as if she had a red coat draped over her."

The other girls shrieked and shushed each other.

Noll almost smirked in amusement. He knew that was the point of ghost stories, to scare, but he'd spent so much time living with the real thing that it took a lot to frighten him. He didn't really see the point of ghost stories, especially now that the girl had stopped talking.

After the brief spurt of whispering hushed, another girl began to speak.

" . . . Okay," she said. "I'll tell the story about the old school building."

Noll's breathing quieted in a demonstration of interest. This was why he was really eavesdropping on a group of schoolgirls. He was doing research, not idly listening to stories.

"It's not just falling apart. The building was supposed to have been destroyed, but they had to stop the demolition process half-way through when all of the workers suddenly quit . . . because of the curse."

Yeah, not likely. Curses took a fair bit of skill and power, far too much to be found often in relatively benign schools.

"Lots of people have died in that school-house over the years, most famously a teacher who committed suicide, so when they decided to build the new school, they started to tear down the old one. But then, the roof fell in, smashing one of the workers. The demolition ended that day."

Noll already knew about those incidents, and while he was there to hear what the students knew, he was quickly losing interest. The entirely fictional first story had been better, even though it was utterly irrelevant to the investigation. At least the girl had some flair for storytelling. Noll could appreciate the difference and he didn't even like ghost stories.

Gene had always liked them, though, Noll remembered. After years of failing to scare his little brother, Gene had told the most ridiculous ghost stories he could think of in hopes of making his him laugh. It usually didn't work, but Noll would lie quietly beside his twin and listen to the joyful rise and fall of his voice. If for no other reason, relieving those memories for a moment without the already expected twinge of pain made eavesdropping on the girls worthwhile.

The story was finishing up now.

"And one night, an upperclassman was walking past the old school when she saw a person there, like a white shadow staring out at her. It beckoned, calling her in, and she looked away for a second. When she looked back, there was no one there. She was all alone by the creepy old building."

"Alright," she finished. "I'm turning it off now."

"One."

"Two."

"Three."

Just when the suspense had reached its climax, when it seemed the very air reverberated with expectation, the counting stopped. Noll was suddenly struck by a playful, mischievous urge. He hadn't felt like this since before Gene left for Japan.

Why not?

"Four," he said.

* * *

**Chapter 34: Good Instincts**

"Aaah!"

Noll flicked on the lights to reveal the three screaming schoolgirls clutching each other in terror in the middle of the room. Each of the girls held a flashlight that had been shut off, probably when they were counting, trying to attract a ghost. Instead, they'd gotten him. Oops. Perhaps he hadn't chosen the best introduction for his investigation.

On the other hand, that was one of the most exciting entrances he'd made in a long time, and he couldn't quite bring himself to regret it. Nevertheless, Noll would quickly win the girls over. If he used that special smile Gene used to charm people he liked and Noll used to manipulate people he didn't, the girls would soon be fawning over him and answer all of his questions without suspicion.

Of course Gene used his people-skills for manipulation too. He was as impatient as his twin with anyone he didn't deem worthy, but he was less indiscriminate in who he took an immediate dislike to.

"Oh, please tell me that was you just now," one of the girls said, with a quick, relieved exhale that said she already knew the answer.

Noll faced the girls, giving each of them a slow, lingering gaze. The girls were similar, all dressed somewhat carelessly in the white blouses and black miniskirts of their school uniforms. They all had similar childish, innocent faces that were only just considering crossing the threshold into adulthood. It would be a few years yet before they did. They were exactly what Noll was looking for: unsuspecting, bored, and interested in ghost stories.

"Am I interrupting?" Noll asked with a slightly coy smile, addressing the mousy, long-haired girl who had just spoken. He assumed she was the ringleader, because she had been the first to address him, but apparently she was just the first to recover. Or a verbal processor. Either way, he was answered instead by one of the other girls, the one with a round, heart-shaped face and pigtails.

"I thought for sure it was the ghost," she sighed in a mixture of strong relief and vague disappointment.

All three of the girls sank into desks in relief as the adrenaline abruptly wore off.

"I'm sorry," Noll lied. "I didn't expect anyone to be here, but then I heard your voices and I couldn't help myself."

He kept his voice gentle and husky, hopefully appealing. Was that what flirting was supposed to sound like? Noll wasn't entirely sure, but despite his relative inexperience, it seemed to be working. He followed with his sweetest smile just to be sure.

His efforts were rewarded when the two girls he had spoken to so far hastened to reassure him.

"No," the long-haired girl protested instantly.

"Oh, it's totally fine," Pigtails added, dismissing the screaming Noll's dramatic entrance had caused as much less important than the arrival of a handsome guy. Noll had been accused of being vain (for some reason people seemed to find the same trait less irritating in Gene), but the vanity was deserved. He couldn't help it that he had the kind of eyes girls got lost in.

After making such a remark, Gene had pointed out that Noll also had the sort of personality that made people wish he would get lost. Fortunately, Noll wasn't using his own personality at the moment.

The two girls fluttered over to him with enthusiasm and unabashed, welcoming smiles, leaving the third behind.

"Are you a transfer student?" Pigtails asked, trying to strike up a conversation.

"I don't see how that's any of your concern" was on the tip of his tongue, but that was what Noll would say. The alter-ego created by Oliver Davis, undercover investigator, met her eyes with a look that attempted to smolder. Subtly. The flirting always had to fall short of blatant interest or it would be creepy, but it always had to be present or he would be ignoring the game. Noll wished he didn't need the girls so he could use the much less foolproof method of treating them like people. For anyone else, that would probably work, – girls are people too – but Noll didn't really like people until he got to know them, so using fake attraction was easier.

"Something like that," he replied with an ambiguous smile, creating an air of mystery.

"What year are you?" Long Hair asked, curious and trying to find something out about the unusual stranger.

"I'm seventeen this year," he answered easily. Okay, so he was still sixteen. He would be seventeen in September, which was part of the same school year in Japan. He'd taken enough harassment about his age for one day.

Long Hair and Pigtails seemed satisfied, but Noll found his attention suddenly drawn to the as of yet silent third girl. She had a round face and a pointy chin, giving her a slightly pixyish quality, and unlike her friends' blackish-brown, her hair and eyes were the color of warm cinnamon. Objectively, she was quite pretty, Noll supposed, though the fly-away strands of hair at the back of her bob suggested that she was unconsciously so. However, there was something about her wide, expressive eyes that seemed too innocent to be real. If she was really as open-hearted as she looked, Noll didn't know how she managed to stay alive.

Those wide, expressive eyes were currently regarding him narrowly in suspicion. That was unexpected and fascinating. Did she distrust all strangers or had she somehow caught on to the fact that he was faking?

"So, we were just telling ghost stories," Long Hair continued, oblivious to whatever had caught Cinnamon's attention.

"I see. Well, maybe I could join you guys sometime," Noll hinted obviously, finally reaching the real reason he was having the conversation.

He colored his voice with just the faintest hint of amusement and a lot of warmth. He'd never compete with Gene's genuine care and benevolence, but he could do a good enough impression to fool an outsider.

"Wow! Do you mean you like telling ghost stories too?" Pigtails exclaimed gleefully.

"Yeah," Noll replied, filling the monosyllabic word with as much meaning as he could muster. He tilted his chin playfully, almost childishly, as if nodding and liking what he saw simultaneously. What he saw was that there were three girls in the room and only two of them were falling for the act. Cinnamon still wasn't buying it.

"You seem like a really cool guy," Long Hair giggled. "What's your name?"

"My name is Shibuya," Noll lied, trying to ignore Cinnamon's approach.

Her eyes bored into his, as if reading something written on the far side of his soul. Noll suddenly felt like she could see the tracks etched there from the tears he'd unknowingly cried. He smiled warmly, hoping she wasn't looking through him, that she couldn't see that his eyes weren't smiling. However perfect his façade was, people who knew him always said that his eyes revealed everything.

Noll shifted uncomfortably, at least on the inside, but hid the awkwardness.

"Okay Shibuya," Cinnamon said flatly, the whisper of a challenge in her voice when she said his name. "I have one question: Why are you here?"

Her words may have been confrontational, but her eyes were sad. They looked as though she saw something she couldn't quite figure out, but she suspected she didn't want to know. Water lapped at the pebbled shore of the lake.

"There are some things I need to take care of," Noll replied archly, trying to keep his normal inflection from slipping through.

"What are you waiting for," she replied, taunting.

The conversation with the others had faded away, leaving only him and Cinnamon. He recognized her voice from the first ghost story, the one he liked, and now she had dismissed him. That was her prerogative. Noll accepted her rejection and turned to walk away.

"Do you need our help or anything?" Pigtails asked, calling him back.

"Sorry," Noll thought to Cinnamon, "but I promise I'm not actually here to flirt with your friends. This is for the case."

"No, but I would love to be invited to join you the next time you tell ghost stories," he practically purred, purpose renewed. A ripple of amusement stirred in his chest as he watched the flash of indignation crash over Cinnamon's face.

"Of course. You're welcome anytime," Long Hair replied.

"How about tomorrow after school?" Pigtails suggested eagerly.

"Okay, but where?" Noll asked immediately, hashing out details before Cinnamon could object.

"Right here," Pigtails said.

Cinnamon seemed to reach a conclusion about whatever suspicions she had and was glaring at Noll in narrow-eyed determination. Well, at least she had good instincts. After all, Noll reflected, she was right not to trust him; he was manipulating her friends and lying about his identity. The girl was intriguing, but she was less important than a quick solution to the case. He'd see her with her less-reticent friends tomorrow, and then he'd forget she ever existed.

"I'll see you then," Noll said with a parting smile.

* * *

**Chapter 35: Something's Begun**

_K-Lin: Do you think he's just hiding out until he's sure I've had enough time to set up all of the cameras? He doesn't like talking to strangers. How long can asking a few questions take?_

_ M-Mori: The building he's in isn't haunted?_

_ K-Lin: I don't even think the building I'm in is haunted. We did a little bit of research before we came – don't take this as my official opinion until we confirm it tonight – and all of the incidents have explanations._

_ M-Mori: You're not in a dangerous neighborhood?_

_ K-Lin: No. Noll's in no more danger of being beaten up than usual. And he's in fine form today. I'm sure it's annoying being a sixteen year old genius, but the age insults are getting tiresome._

_ M-Mori: Aw, you're worried. Kawaii! You don't need to be, though. If he's insulting you, he's talking again and the case sounds safe enough._

_ K-Lin: I'm not worried. I've been waiting here for twenty minutes and I'm annoyed. I'm not sure you know what kawaii means if you're applying it to me._

_ M-Mori: I do too._

_ K-Lin: Use it in a sentence._

Madoka only had a second to contemplate the relative merits of typing "Kittens are kawaii", thus comparing Lin to a kitten – Madoka giggled for a moment picturing Lin as a little black panther cub – or "Your ass is kawaii", thus telling Lin she liked his butt. All too soon, Lin was typing again and Madoka lost her opportunity.

_ K-Lin: He's back._

"The cameras are set up," Lin told his "boss".

"Then we can leave for the day," Noll replied. "There's nothing more to do here right now."

Lin waited for a moment hoping that Noll would make the natural segue into a discussion of what he had found out from the students. Naturally, the boy didn't.

"Learn anything interesting?" Lin prompted.

"Not yet, but I will," Noll answered blandly. "We need to be back here about the same time tomorrow. I have a date with some girls to tell ghost stories."

Then, as if the boy hadn't just uttered one of the most surprising sentences of his life, he left the building without warning to return to the van.

_ K-Lin: Noll "has a date with some girls to tell ghost stories." His words, not yours, which is what they sound like._

_ M-Mori: This case is already off to an interesting start._

Lin shook his head as he followed Noll to the SPR van. He'd never thought the day would come when the workaholic boy took a pointless case and spent it talking to girls. Madoka was right: this one was going to be different.

Noll didn't share Lin's sentiments as he leaned impatiently against the van, annoyed at waiting two minutes after having kept the onmyouji waiting for twenty. He knew Lin reported more back to Madoka than ever reached his parents, and his words were meant to tease her. She didn't need to worry about him.

That didn't mean that there was anything special about this case. Yes, Noll never thought he'd take a scientifically worthless case – not that he'd confirmed the absence of spirits yet – but he had also never thought that Lin would try to make him go for a walk in the park. Today was full of surprises, and the case was simply the lesser of two evils. It was nothing special.

Nevertheless, that night, mixed in with his usual dreams of headlights, lakes, and his brother's smile, Noll also saw harmless, cartoon-style ghosts with flashlights. Those dreams smelled pleasantly of cinnamon.

* * *

_**A/N:** Chapter 30 . . . Okay, so it was a bit ridiculous, but I have no regrets. What better way could there be to start the section where Noll meets Mai?_

_**Next time:** Cinnamon returns! And she injures Lin, and Noll impulsively blackmails her into working for him, and she's still kind of cute. What's a Noll to do?_


End file.
